engleski

Political communication on social networking sites – Twitter posts by the Members of Parliament and parliamentary parties in the Republic of Croatia

The appearance and development of social networking sites have enabled a faster and simpler two-way communication between politicians on the one side and their voters as well as their opponents on the other. Recently, Twitter has become the fastest media in communication, having taken down the radio from its throne by having millions of posts on daily basis. Both the importance and the speed of Twitter posts have been recognized by many companies, non-governmental sector, private users as well as political parties and politicians individually. Having an active Twitter account means being available for communication 24/7. In the year in which Donald Trump's victory in USA Presidential Elections is attributed to none other than Twitter, this paper aims to give a theoretical overview of both political communication as well as political marketing on social networking sites dealing with its flaws and advantages. The first part of this paper is a theoretical one concentrating not only on public relations on social networking sites, but also on their potential influence on political campaigns in relation to the (influence of the) classical mass media. Another thing it questions is the possible influence such a campaign might have on motivating young voters to participate in the elections. The statistical method of counting was used to determine how many of the political parties constituting the nineth term of the Croatian Parliament have active Twitter accounts as well as how many Members of Parliament (out of the 151 elected ones) use this particular social network in their political work. The research conducted has also determined the number of posted statuses, followers and followees, as well as the number of official Twitter profiles of political parties currently in the Parliament and the number of official Twitter profiles of individual Members of Parliament. The results acquired by quantitative research have been compared to the results of an identical research conducted in 2015 for the seventh term of the Croatian Parliament in order to determine whether the number of Twitter users amongst politicians in the Parliament has risen or not.

Twitter ; twitter account ; post ; Members of Parliament ; parliamentary party ; election campaign

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