The paper suggests that the concept of ‘online communication repertoire’ can be a useful analytical tool to develop a comprehensive understanding of online electoral campaign in an era of convergence culture and transmedia storytelling. Indeed, it allows scholars to consider what political candidates, do with different types of online media platforms in order to promote their public image in times of electoral campaigns. Instead of focusing on a single platform, the paper argues, the actor-centred perspective of online communication repertoire is needed to grasp the main characteristics of online electoral campaigning. The paper discusses the concept of online communication repertoire, drawing on the findings of a research on the online campaigning ofthe 53 candidates as governors at the last Italian regional elections in April 2010. First, the paper introduces the methods employed to collect data and then operationalizes the very concept of online communication repertoire for the study of electoral campaigning. Second, the paper proposes a typology of 5 online communication repertoire (the absentee, the resistant, the false innovative, the up-to-date, the very innovative) employed during the last Italian regional elections in April 2010. Third, the paper illustrates how the actual use of Facebook, the most diffused web 2.0 platform in Italy, varied (or not) according to the online communication repertoire at stake. The conclusions address two key, and opposite, hypotheses related to the internet use by political parties: the ‘politics as usual’ and the ‘equalization’ hypothesis exploring them further starting from the comprehensive concept of online communication repertoire.
