To Tweet, or Not to Tweet? Analysing the Social Media Behaviour of Belgian Politicians in the 2014 Election

The 2014 election was announced as the mother of all elections in Belgium. Not only because polls indicated majorities could shift, but more so because several elections were combined. On May 25th Belgian citizens voted for a new regional, federal and European government, meaning the political landscape was drawn for the next five years. It needs no further argumentation that stakes were high for each party and each individual politician. It might therefore be assumed that much effort was invested in political campaigning. The research presented in this paper focuses on the role of social media during the political campaigns of the 2014 election. More specific this research addresses the Twitter and Facebook behavior of Belgian political parties and individual politicians. The relationship between parties’ social media strategy, social media behavior and voting results (for example preferential votes) is investigated. This Belgian case study aims to retrieve the social media behavior of 13 parties and 26 candidates across Belgium on a national level. For a period of 6 months tweets and Facebook messages from the above-mentioned parties and individual politicians have been studied from a quantitative research perspective. Variables included in the analyses are: party ideology, party campaign strategy and individual politicians (age, language, ethnicity and gender). Based on these variables the Twitter and Facebook behavior of these political parties and candidates is mapped. Also attention is paid to the level of interaction with the voters / followers (one-way, two-way or three way interaction; Lilleker & Jackson, 2014). Results will be compared with similar research done in other countries. This workshop would be an additional value to this doctoral research to develop a more international comparison and gain more insights on how to measure effects.