Social media has contributed to a democratization of public discourse. The down side is that it also means a dependency of social media where the logic of different platforms governs the public discourse. The purpose of this study is to widen the understanding of how Swedish politicians relate to social media through the dimensions of media logic, political logic and strategic use. Through interviews with members of the Swedish parliament, we seek to answer which logic they are governed by in their use of social media and if they are strategic in their use. Political logic and media logic, with a clear distinction between network media logic and mass media logic, constitutes the theoretical framework. The conclusion is that the politicians are governed by political logic, but are highly aware of the logics of different social media. They adapt to the logic of different social media in some ways but also actively choose to not adapt, with the motivation that their goal is to spread knowledge about their political issues. They show different levels of strategy in their usage. However, through the example of Twitter/X and the changes the platform has gone through recently, we identify that the politicians are bound to platforms and their logic even if they don’t want to be. Therefore, we classify the politicians as strategic victims. This study constitutes one piece of the bigger puzzle in understanding the impact of media logic on political logic by exploring the phenomenon in a Swedish context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-521347 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Kvist, William, Harju Håkansson, Ida |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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