Social media campaigning across multiple platforms: evidence from the 2024 European elections

Abstract

Politicians have a rational incentive to keep up with voters’ growing use of social media platforms. How they do so is important for democratic political communication. The article examines how the shifting nature of social media campaigning is being realised in the context of the European Parliament, benefitting from variation in the legislature’s broad cross-national and multi-party context. Sourcing original data on the digital footprints of all outgoing members of the 9th European Parliament (2019–24), it explores differences in campaigning and user engagement across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Findings indicate that while more established and centrist legislators engage with voters across more platforms, extremist Eurosceptic voices were more dominant during the 2024 election campaign. This result has important implications for who controls the narrative of European integration. It can be extended to digital campaigning in other contexts, where extremist voices may be more likely to drive user engagement and virality.

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