Hybrid media consumption and production in #ge2020: the battle to own ‘change’

Abstract

Traditionally, political parties engage with journalists to promote their agendas and claim issue ownership through publishing manifestos, holding public events and issuing statements, but the coverage that this interaction produces is determined by the editorial focus and decision making of each outlet. In a hybrid media age, political parties can engage in disintermediation by directly shaping their own agenda and communicating with the public using social media, which also facilitate populist messaging. In this article, we use a combination of traditional media and social media data to explore how key issues and parties were mediated during the battle to own ‘change’ and claim issue ownership in the 2020 election campaign in Ireland. The analysis draws upon coded articles from three mainstream outlets and Facebook posts from the three main parties, along with user engagement data from those Facebook posts. We find that newspaper coverage reflected the framing of a change election. While Fine Gael received the most coverage, both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin show clear attempts to own change through social media, with Sinn Féin in particular ‘owning’ the most salient election issue of housing while also deploying substantial populist messaging which resulted in the most engagement.