"But I'm a human being!" Personalization in communication of politicians' on SNSs in Latvia and the Czech Republic

DREIJERE, Vita and Alena MACKOVÁ. "But I'm a human being!" Personalization in communication of politicians' on SNSs in Latvia and the Czech Republic. In CEECOM 2015: The Digital Media Challenge, Zagreb. 2015.

Basic information

• Original name: "But I'm a human being!" Personalization in communication of politicians' on SNSs in Latvia and the Czech Republic
• Name (in English): "But I'm a human being!" Personalization in communication of politicians' on SNSs in Latvia and the Czech Republic
• Authors: DREIJERE, Vita and Alena MACKOVÁ.
• Edition: CEECOM 2015: The Digital Media Challenge, Zagreb, 2015.

Other information

• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: Conference website
• Keywords in English: new media; social networking sites; politicians; political communication; personalization; Latvia; the Czech Republic
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

Personalization has become a central concept in the academic discussions on how political communication have changed over time. As well as politicians may behave more as individual actors, citizens may increasingly make their choices based on leaders. In the era of declining participation and growing distrust in the politics, the politicians can use SNSs as medium for spreading information about themselves as individuals - and therefore make themselves more visible and closer to citizens; to bridge the communication gap in politicians-citizens relationship. Since in case of our research on SNSs we focus on the politicians as producers of content, we focus on personalization in sense of its privatization dimension rather than individualization. We ask: Do politicians intentionally use strategies of personalization? Can we identify different strategies across SNSs, or across the countries? To answer these questions we use data from semi-structured in-depth interviews (collected in 2014-2015, non-election period) with elite politicians from Latvia and the Czech Republic, focused on Facebook and Twitter. The preliminary results indicate that politicians who prefer privatization strategy emphasize the need to demonstrate that politicians are „real persons“. Although politician’s private life is an important resource for the construction of political identity and also families take part in this process, very often the family is borderline of privatization of the SNS content. On the other side, our research indicates that even though the adoption of SNSs is relatively widespread among politicians, their use of this media is sometimes more careful and reserved.

Abstract (in English)

Personalization has become a central concept in the academic discussions on how political communication have changed over time. As well as politicians may behave more as individual actors, citizens may increasingly make their choices based on leaders. In the era of declining participation and growing distrust in the politics, the politicians can use SNSs as medium for spreading information about themselves as individuals - and therefore make themselves more visible and closer to citizens; to bridge the communication gap in politicians-citizens relationship. Since in case of our research on SNSs we focus on the politicians as producers of content, we focus on personalization in sense of its privatization dimension rather than individualization. We ask: Do politicians intentionally use strategies of personalization? Can we identify different strategies across SNSs, or across the countries? To answer these questions we use data from semi-structured in-depth interviews (collected in 2014-2015, non-election period) with elite politicians from Latvia and the Czech Republic, focused on Facebook and Twitter. The preliminary results indicate that politicians who prefer privatization strategy emphasize the need to demonstrate that politicians are „real persons“. Although politician’s private life is an important resource for the construction of political identity and also families take part in this process, very often the family is borderline of privatization of the SNS content. On the other side, our research indicates that even though the adoption of SNSs is relatively widespread among politicians, their use of this media is sometimes more careful and reserved.