Reaching Out to the Europeans. Political Parties’ Facebook Strategies of Issue Ownership and the Second-Order Character of European Election Campaigns

The European Election campaign 2019 enjoyed heightened attention in the European and global public due to the recent emergence of populist actors, new parties, and large European issues such as immigration, climate change, and Brexit. Starting theoretically from the issue ownership theory, shareworthiness, and the second-order character of European elections, the study at hand investigates the campaigns of 69 parties from 9 countries on Facebook as one of the current central spheres of electoral contest. Facebook enables parties to provide users with selected issues considered advantageous for themselves. The number of posts’ shares indicates whether the parties manage to reach out to the voters with these issues. The results show that parties use Facebook strategically for highlighting certain issues and focusing on specific political levels in line with the theoretical approaches. However, it seems that users in contrast to the theories do not pay heightened attention to issues and political levels which are strategically emphasized by parties. These findings point to a remarkable gap between parties’ and their followers’ communication. The supply and demand side of campaign communication obviously do not overlap to a high degree. User engagement seems to be driven by other factors.