European Patterns of Negative Campaigning? Going Negative in the 2019 European Election Campaign

In election campaigns over the past two decades, negative campaigning has increasingly become a critical topic of discussion among politicians, campaign managers, pollsters, and in the media. The majority of them agree on the fact that negative campaigning is a frequently used communication strategy by political parties and they believe that going negative ‘‘works’’. Research on national elections focusing on traditional channels such as press releases and media coverage has empirically supported such a notion (e.g., Geer, 2006; Russmann, 2017, 2019; Walter & Vliegenthart, 2010). To identify and explore the use of negative messaging tactics from a political actor’s perspective (Haynes, Flowers & Gurian, 2002; Haynes, Flowers & Harman, 2006), this study turns attention to Facebook and hence, to a communication channel that is fully controlled by the political parties themselves. This form of communication is self-initiated and thus a direct representation of the party’s tactical choices. Negative campaigning is a campaign strategy aiming at critically presenting the political opponent in order to emphasize the own party. The aim of this strategy is to change recipients’ attitudes in a negative way towards the political opponent. This study explores to what extent political parties engaged in going negative in the 2019 European Elections, who was targeted and how users reacted on negative posts. To our knowledge, there is only one study on negative campaigning in the context of European election campaigns (Schweitzer, 2010 for German party websites). To find answers to our research questions, we focus on political parties’ Facebook posts using content analysis. The coding of 9,406 Facebook posts of parties, which were successful during the 2019 European Election Campaign of nine countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, UK) has been completed. Coding of political parties’ Facebook post from Austria, Denmark, and Romania is currently finalized. These twelve countries cover 82% of the European population. Data was gathered one month prior to the elections by using API based software (Facepager). The overall impression of all post elements (texts, pictures and videos) was coded in terms of positive and negative statements and emotions, stereotypes and the targeted actors. The analysis of quantitative Facebook data (i.e. likes, shares, comments) will give answers on users reactions on parties going negative. Results on nine countries show that positive statements (28%) were used more frequently than negative statements (22%). A fair amount of attacks was directed at candidates and parties of the parliamentary groups (24%), in particular from the S&D, EPP and EFDD/EFD group. Only 3% of the negative attacks aimed at EU and non-EU political institutions and bodies. The negative content originated predominantly from Italian (43%), Spanish (15%) and German (13%) parties, mainly from populist parties like Lega Nord, Movimento 5 Stelle, Forza Italia, AfD, or Podemos. In terms of engagement, posts with negative statements generally received more comments and were shared more often than their positive counterparts. Therefore, our findings indicate that political parties go negative in dependence of their populist nature but also country of origin.