The Mediatization of European Electoral Campaign: The Case of EUVOX

The question of how VAAs spread during electoral campaigns is of utmost importance given the role played by legacy media in shaping political reality by “choosing and displaying news”. If VAAs are not promoted by professional communication teams, then there is limited evidence of the diffusion models that prevail during a campaign process. Using “EUVOX” as a case study for the last EP elections, the goal of this paper is to study the traffic generators towards EUVOX in selected countries, and investigate the impact of media sources (direct and referral) and media events on the number of visitors. Finally the analysis will present the profile of the users in relation to the media source from which they have accessed EUVOX. The findings will provide not only useful insights regarding the VAA campaign research, but also shed light on the current research agenda regarding diffusion models of innovative political platforms.