Estrategias comunicativas en Facebook: personalización y construcción de comunidad en las elecciones de 2016 en España

Social media have become fundamental platforms of influence during election periods. They are forums where politicians promote their agendas and programs, encourage mobilisation, and call on the public to vote, although they rarely engage in dialogue with citizens. The aim of this study is to delve deeper into the case of Facebook and evaluate the functions that Spanish politicians attribute to this platform by using quantitative content analysis of all the posts published by the main political parties and their candidates in the 2016 Spanish election campaign. The results indicate that campaign events take up a significant part of the activity, and that interaction with the audience is low. There is also an upward trend in personalisation and community building, strategies that can help to gain influence by showing a more human side of the candidates and appealing to the values and ideology of the party.