Politicians, celebrities and social media: a case of informalisation?

ABSTRACT

With electoral politics no longer organised by social class, politicians increasingly seek to relate to a broad spectrum of citizens and part of their relatability is conjured through more casual, informal performances aimed at cultivating authenticity. The various platforms of social media promote forms of authentic communication by blurring the public/private divide, creating ‘spontaneous’ and instant access to ‘real life’. This article seeks to investigate the informalisation thesis by applying it to data from young people aged 16–21 years in Australia, the UK and the USA, asked about the way politicians and celebrities use social media. Findings reveal respondents’ desire for more authentic and accessible politicians, but this was in direct tension with traditional views and expectations of politicians needing to be professional, informed and worthy of respect. Informalisation amongst politicians is evident and welcomed by young citizens but persistent traditional views means it also threatens their credibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Authenticity
• celebrity
• informalisation
• politicians
• politics
• social media
• young citizens

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Nathan Manning http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0488-0888

Ruth Penfold-Mounce http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1344-460X

Brian D. Loader http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1016-4346

Ariadne Vromen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2398-632X

Notes

1. It is worth noting that the electoral systems and political cultures of the chosen countries tend to place more emphasis on individual politicians than some proportional systems and political cultures where parties are more prominent.

2. This resulted in four groups labelled regarding high or low participation and high or low SES. These labels have not been retained in the analysis as we found no discernible pattern. Gender and country labels have been applied but our data reveal strong coherence across these variables.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Spencer Foundation for their generous financial support for The Civic Network Project [grant 201300029].