Mediatized politics in Palestine: Online platforms’ influence on framing of politicians’ messages

Abstract

Based on a theoretical framework of mediatization and framing, this article examines the communication behaviors of leaders from the prominent Palestinian party, Fatah, on social media, with a specific focus on the general election decree of 2021. It involves interviews with journalists and an analysis of social media content to explain how politicians’ online behavior is influenced by the formats of social media content. It shows that Palestinian politicians often use identical content on both Facebook and X (previously Twitter), with a higher frequency of written material over visual content. Politicians use their social media accounts to express their positions on internal and international political affairs. Journalists consider these accounts a source of information, thus reaffirming that political social media is newsworthy for journalists. This article contributes to the study of mediatization that is largely conducted in Western contexts, challenging the notion that mediatization only occurs in highly digitized societies.