"Högre hastighetsgräns för EPA-traktorer" - en frihetsfråga eller strategisk kommunikation? : En kvalitativ analys av politiska ungdomsförbunds sociala medier

• Main Authors: Melkersson, Fabian, Madsen, Rebecka
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper 2018
• Subjects: political communication; youth organizations; Media and Communications; Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-146856

The evolution within political parties shows an increase of professionalisation where a higher competence is on demand and is practised on a communicative level. Currently a lot of the research surrounding this professionalisation has been focused on only political parties , but at the same time other stakeholders is also working within the political area without being political parties. How does political youth associations, that is widely driven by volunteers, navigate within this political context where the demands and expectations is constantly increasing? The purpose of this study was to examine how political communication is practised by political youth associations in a world that gets increasingly more professional. The study was conducted by analysing every post published during the month of January 2018 by the two political youth associations SSU and MUF on their Facebook and Instagram pages. The chosen method of this study has been Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, complemented by qualitative interviews with the heads of digital communication of both associations. The theories applied on the material was different approaches to discourses, mainly the thoughts of Michel Foucault, combined with how discourses can shape identities. The theories by Erving Goffman concerning the presentation of self and, by extension, the presentation of organisations, was also used. By applying these to the material, six different themes were identified.These can be divided into two subsections, content and form, which lay the groundwork for the central result of this study. Both associations have to balance the work of attracting new members and maintaining a trustworthy political image. This is the result of political communication that has become highly professional.