Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.20901/ms.7.14.11

Walking the Party Line? The Determinants of Facebook’s Adoption and Use by Czech Parliamentarians

Alena Macková ; Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prague and Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies, Brno, the Czech Republic
Václav Štětka ; Loughborough University, Department of Social Sciences, UK and Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, the Czech Republic

Abstract

The last few years have witnessed an intensified academic debate on the potential of online social networking sites (SNSs) in the Czech Republic. However, the ensuing academic discussions focused
mostly on the SNS pages of political parties. Politicians in particular have recently become the focus of attention in the shift towards research exploring the use of SNSs. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the role of Facebook in the communication of parties and candidates during the Czech parliamentary elections in 2013. We analyse the adoption of Facebook as a mobilization tool by seven parties as well as by 200 individual deputies, looking for similarities and differences in terms of the adoption, strategy and engagement of users. Although party influence seems to be a significant predictor of Facebook adoption, our data also indicate that using other digital channels increases the chances of higher engagement on Facebook at the individual level.

Keywords

Facebook; online social networking sites; parliamentary election; the Czech Republic

Hrčak ID:

171185

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/171185

Publication date:

15.12.2016.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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