https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7597-203X
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ABSTRACT
Most research on governments’ use of social media focuses on the national or federal level. We therefore know little about the way local authorities harness social media platforms to communicate with their constituencies. This paper studies the role structural and political variables played in Chilean mayors’ political communication strategies during 2020–2021, a period of municipal elections marked by lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate whether the volume and characteristics of mayors’ social media posts are related to political factors (partisanship; alignment or not with the governing block; years in office), socioeconomic characteristics (poverty rate; age profile; health infrastructure; etc.); and the incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths at the municipal level. We found that mayors’ social media communication strategies depend on the functions that different municipalities perform in the territory, and that socioeconomic variables differentiate these activities. More specifically, we found that mayors of poorer communities made more extensive use of social media during lockdown periods than did mayors of more affluent municipalities.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. For a recent study of crisis communication by local public authorities via social media, see Splendiani and Capriello (Citation2022). The authors conducted an analysis of Twitter’s role in crisis communication by reviewing all earthquake-related messages from local public authorities in four regions of Italy. Their findings indicated that authorities in these Italian regions only used Twitter to provide general information and failed to deliver a comprehensive and nuanced depiction of the disaster.
2. According to Mathieu et al. (Citation2020), Chile has vaccinated a higher percentage of its population against COVID-19 than any other Latin American country.
3. Data on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and information regarding the implementation of lockdowns were retrieved from the Ministry of Health’s open-source repository, available at: https://github.com/MinCiencia/DatosCOVID19/tree/master/output/producto74.
4. See “Estudio Nacional de Opinión Pública N°84” (Centro de Estudios Públicos, January 16, 2020). https://www.cepchile.cl/encuesta/estudio-nacional-de-opinion-publica-n84-diciembre-2019–2/ (last accessed July 4, 2023).
5. See e.g. “Germán Codina y el plebiscito de los alcaldes: “Nos interesa que los resultados sean políticamente vinculantes” (El Mostrador, November 13, 2019). https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2019/11/13/german-codina-y-el-plebiscito-de-los-alcaldes-nos-interesa-que-los-resultados-sean-politicamente-vinculantes/ (last accessed July 4, 2023). Also, see e,g, “Chile negocia contra reloj una salida a la crisis” (El País, November 13, 2019). https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/11/13/actualidad/1573665448_105585.html (last accessed July 4, 2023).
6. In November 15, 2019 Congress reached an agreement to initiate a process of constitutional reform and the mayors decided to support it.
7. By “post” we refer to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts made by municipalities.
8. STM models are widely used in research that analyzes large amounts of text. STM allows one to include covariates.
9. The structure detected in this topic modeling is relatively independent of the period in which posts are made (lockdown vs. normal times).
10. We have analyzed the effect of platform on the topics posted by local governments. We observe that municipal authorities used Twitter more frequently than Facebook to communicate issues about COVID-19 prevention. Facebook was used more frequently than Twitter for issues regarding social support. See in the Appendix.
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Notes on contributors
Juan Pablo Luna
Juan Pablo Luna is a Professor of Political Science at the Escuela de Gobierno of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and an Associate Researcher at the Millenium Institute for Foundational Research on Data and VIODEMOS. His research interests are in the comparative politics of Latin America, political representation in unequal societies, and organized crime.
Daniel Alcatruz
Daniel Alcatruz (B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration, Universidad de Concepción, Chile) is a Data Analyst and Research Assistant at the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD), Chile. He is also a Selected Fulbright Scholar. His co-authored articles have been published in journals including Sustainability and the Journal of Information Technology & Politics.
Cristian Pérez Muñoz
Cristian Pérez Muñoz is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. His research and teaching interests are in normative political theory, public policy, and comparative political theory, with a focus on Latin America.
Fernando Rosenblatt
Fernando Rosenblatt is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Diego Portales and received his PhD in political science from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has published in Perspectives on Politics, Government Information Quarterly, Governance, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, Politics & Society, Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, Latin American Politics and Society, Latin American Research Review, Democratization, Política y Gobierno, and Revista de Ciencia Política. His book Party Vibrancy and Democracy in Latin America was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press. In collaboration with Verónica Pérez and Rafael Piñeiro, he has coauthored How Party Activism Survives: Uruguay’s Frente Amplio, published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press.In collaboration with Juan Pablo Luna, Rafael Piñeiro Rodríguez and Gabriel Vommaro, he has coedited Diminished Parties. Democratic Representation in Contemporary Latin America, published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press.
Sergio Toro Maureira
Sergio Toro-Maureira is Full Professor at Universidad Mayor, Chile and Associate Researcher at Millennium Nucleus on Digital Inequalities and Opportunities (NCS2022_046) .His research topics are the logic of representation in Latin American political systems and the science of information for public policies.
Sebastián Valenzuela
Sebastián Valenzuela (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is Associate Professor and Research Chair in the School of Communications at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Associate Researcher with the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD) and the Millennium Nucleus on Digital Inequalities and Opportunities (NUDOS), and chair of the Science and Methodology Committee of the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE). He is an expert in political communication, journalism and social media, topics on which he has authored or co-authored more than 90 publications, including the third edition of Setting the Agenda: The News Media and Public Opinion (Polity Press, 2021). He is associate editor for Human Communication Research and the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.