Personal, Private, Emotional? How Political Parties Use Personalization Strategies on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns

In 2014, the EU introduced the lead candidate procedure to raise citizens’ awareness and interest in the European Parliament (EP) elections and, thereby, voter turnout. We study the use of personalization, centralized personalization (focusing on lead candidates), emotional personalization, and private personalization on Facebook by political parties across 12 countries during the 2014 and 2019 EP campaigns and the effects of personalization on user engagement. A standardized quantitative content analysis of 14,293 posts by 227 political parties shows that about half of the Facebook posts were personalized, but there is no general trend of rising personalization. While emotional personalization increased, parties hardly ever posted about their lead candidates and their private lives. Variations are not due to structural (e.g., party and media systems) or geographical/cultural factors. Positive effects are found for the use of emotional personalization attracting a higher volume of user reactions (likes, reactions, shares, and comments) in both elections.