Politainment and polarization in Spanish political discourse: Differences in the commitment of parties and their leaders

Abstract

In the era of prosumers and fragmented communication, political marketing experts are opting to create a more direct and personal communication strategy adapted to the language of social media. The growing interest and involvement of citizens in political communication makes them an active audience and, therefore, a stakeholder to be taken into account in the narrative proposed by political parties. Consequently, this research aims to determine whether the humanization of political figures through politainment techniques generates greater audience interaction. The results of a conclusive and descriptive mixed-method study are presented, analyzing engagement on X (formerly Twitter) with posts by Spain’s five major political forces and their top representatives in relation to the Amnesty Law (November 2023). This highly controversial issue strongly mobilized citizens and continued to shape the political debate for several years. The results show greater engagement on the personal profiles of politicians than on the official profiles of their parties..