Monitoring Facebook
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MONITORING FACEBOOK Parliamentary Elections 2019 Poland Final Report MONITORING FACEBOOK Parliamentary Elections 2019 Poland Final Report 9 December 2019 Warsaw, Poland This project was supported by Civitates Political Accountability Foundation/Fundacja Odpowiedzialna Polityka (FOP) is a Polish foundation active in the area of election observation, strengthening of democracy and civil society development. FOP has organised several projects of elections observation and education for election observers: • video-observation of the 2018 Presidential and 2019 local elections in Russia • observation of the 2018 local elections in Masovian voivodeship, Poland • Election Assessment Mission to the European Parliament elections in 2019 • assistance to domestic observation groups in Poland prior to the 2019 Parliamentary elections From 1 September until 11 October, FOP, in cooperation with MEMO98 and DRI, monitored Facebook ahead of the 13 October parliamentary election in Poland. Authors Fundacja Odpowiedzialna Polityka • Robert Lech • Zofia Lutkiewicz Analysts • Agnieszka Mikulska-Jolles • Maria Piotrowska • Maciej Marek Kozioł • Dominika Ziętara MEMO 98 • Rasťo Kužel TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 6 2. HIGHLIGHTS ................................................................................ 7 3. FINDINGS ................................................................................... 7 3. 1. POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICIANS ..................................................... 9 3.1.1. POLITICAL PARTIES ................................................................. 11 3.1.2. POLITICIANS ........................................................................ 18 3.2. MEDIA AND INFLUENCERS .................................................................. 22 4. TRUST IN MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION ....................................... 23 4.1. PUBLIC ATTITUDES AND TRUST IN INSTITUTIONS ......................................... 25 4.2. ELECTORAL CONTEXT ...................................................................... 25 5. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................. 27 6. ANNEXES .................................................................................... 29 6.1. ANNEX I: LIST OF NARRATIVES USED DURING THE MONITORING: ........................ 29 6.2. ANNEX II: LIST OF FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS ................................................. 30 6.2.1. POLITICAL PARTIES ................................................................. 30 6.2.2. POLITICIANS ....................................................................... 34 6.2.3. JOURNALIST AND INFLUENCERS .................................................. 40 6.2.4. MEDIA OUTLETS AND INTERNET SOURCES ....................................... 43 6.3. ANNEX III: SUMMARY OF SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT: ........................................... 47 6.4. ANNEX IV: LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................ 49 MONITORING FACEBOOK | PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 2019 POLAND DRI | POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOUNDATION | MEMO 98 1. INTRODUCTION iven the growing impact of social media, the the run up to the election and which one of them G way people consume political information generated the highest level of engagement (com- has changed considerably over the past few years. ments, shares and reactions, see also the section The negative part of this change entails informa- on methodology). tion that is often unverified, decontextualized, and manipulated to affirm or exploit pre-existing bias- The monitoring was organized in the framework es. There is a growing awareness that underlying of a project carried out by DRI and MEMO 98 and societal grievances can be exploited in the media funded by Civitates. The project seeks to signifi- ecosystem by opportunistic actors, either from cantly step up a real-time understanding of social outside the country or from the inside. Previous media dynamics by providing a toolkit for social experience from several countries has indicated media monitoring in elections which is to be of- that these risks can be exacerbated during times fered to observer organizations across the EU and of heightened social and political debate, such as beyond. The project builds on the methodology elections.1 The issue of social media and disinfor- that DRI, MEMO98 and other experts developed mation has gained increasing attention as a possi- in the context of Supporting Democracy, an EU ble threat to the integrity of elections worldwide. It project.2 was in this context that we decided to analyse the role of Facebook during the 13 October parliamen- The toolkit will be based on the methodology and tary elections in Poland. will provide tools and up-to-date information to help observers monitor the influence of social Between 1 September and 11 October 2019 (till media during elections, providing the basis for re- the beginning of the campaign silence), Political sponsive advocacy (such as intervention with firms) Accountability Foundation (FOP), in cooperation and long-term advocacy for a better regulation. with MEMO 98, monitored 74 public Facebook ac- Apart from Poland, the social media monitoring counts of political parties, election coalitions, poli- methodology has been tested in Austria, Portugal, ticians, media and other influential actors involved Croatia, Romania, and Slovakia. in the parliamentary elections. The main goal of the monitoring was to evaluate the importance of Facebook was actively used by almost all moni- Facebook (FB) during the elections and the poten- tored election stakeholders. There was no major tial impact of the messages disseminated through party registered for these elections which would this social platform on election integrity. Moreo- not have its official FB account. As many as 8.848 ver, the monitoring tried to evaluate what topics posts uploaded by 74 selected actors on FB were and narratives were presented by political actors analysed between 1 September and 11 October. and others on their public Facebook accounts in The main findings of the monitoring include: 1 „Monitoring of posts by political parties on Facebook European Parliament Elections 2019“ Preliminary Report, MEMO98 2 ‘‘Supporting Democracy’’ is an EIDHR–funded technical assistance programme working with EU Delegations (EUDs) to strengthen the role of local civil society in advocating and monitoring democratic accountability. < 6 / 50 > MONITORING FACEBOOK | PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 2019 POLAND DRI | POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOUNDATION | MEMO 98 2. HIGHLIGHTS • hile the election-related campaign was • There was a clear tendency to focus more on Wharsh and characterized by intolerant domestic issues and less on international topics. rhetoric, our monitoring of official Facebook pages of politicians, parties, traditional me- • Given the high-media polarization and pub- dia and influencers did not reveal either posts lic TV’s biased coverage in favour of the rul- which would contain dangerous speech or ing party, Facebook served as an alternative disinformation. platform for communication, particularly for those parties and actors with restricted access • Political parties used Facebook mainly to mo- to mainstream media. bilize their voters. In particular, Facebook ac- counts were used by parties to inform about • Some 25 per cent of posts were assessed as not campaign activities, usually including some having either direct or indirect links to elections. short video materials and quotations by party leaders. • When it comes to posts devoted to elections and disseminated by political parties and pol- • The monitoring revealed that of the four ob- iticians, most of them focused on pushing served categories, the FB accounts of tradi- narratives linked to mobilization of voters, tional media produced the highest number elections in general, the rule of law and dis- of posts but generated the lowest share of in- crediting of the opposition. teractions when compared to posts by other three monitored categories. • Among monitored actors coming from media and influencers, the situation was more varied. • The posts produced by politicians generated No single narrative had a dominant position the highest number of interactions. but the most present referred to political scan- dals of the government, discrediting of the op- • The monitored official Facebook accounts of position, economy and elections in general. influencers produced the lowest number of posts amongst the four observed categories • FB accounts of traditional media generally gen- but these posts generated the second biggest erated the highest number of posts, announcing share of interactions). their programs and providing links to articles and other types of content on their web sites. < 7 / 50 > MONITORING FACEBOOK | PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 2019 POLAND DRI | POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOUNDATION | MEMO 98 3. FINDINGS ur monitoring of Facebook focused on the they could be justified under clear legal circum- Oset of actors who are important in the con- stances as even freedom of expression has certain text of elections but did not go beyond the chosen limitations. four categories - politicians, parties, traditional media and influencers. While we did monitor traf- During the monitoring period, we analysed 8.848 fic of posts related to all monitored actors, we did posts uploaded on FB by 74 selected actors. Prior not focus on unofficial or private accounts