TikTok as a platform for negative political campaigning: A comparative analysis of presidential candidates in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia
Article Sidebar
Downloads
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study analyzes negative political campaigns on TikTok through the official accounts of six presidential candidates from Brazil, Chile, and Colombia: Jair Bolsonaro, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Gabriel Boric, José Antonio Kast, Rodolfo Hernández, and Gustavo Petro. A comparative content analysis was conducted of all publications made by the candidates in their most recent electoral campaigns, covering a total of 759 units of analysis. The research focuses on the frequency of negative messages, the variability of these messages according to ideological orientation, the dimension in which the attacks occur (personal or political), and the themes used to tarnish the opponent’s reputation. The results show that TikTok acts as a conducive platform for negative campaigning, demonstrating that the frequency and type of negative messages vary significantly between candidates. Additionally, the case studies highlight notable differences in the use and nature of negative messages on TikTok according to the candidates’ ideology.
Article Details
References
Albertazzi, D., & Bonansinga, D. (2023). Beyond anger: The populist radical right on TikTok. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 32(3), 673–689. https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2022.2163380
Ansolabehere, S. D., & Iyengar, S. (1995). Going negative: How political advertisements shrink and polarize the electorate. Free Press.
Ansolabehere, S. D., Iyengar, S., Simon, A., & Valentino, N. (1994). Does attack advertising demobilize the electorate? The American Political Science Review, 88(4), 829–838. https://doi.org/10.2307/2082710
Auter, Z. J., & Fine, J. A. (2016). Negative campaigning in the social media age: Attack advertising on Facebook. Political Behavior, 38, 999–1020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-016-9346-8
Basil, M., Schooler, C., & Reeves, B. (1991). Positive and negative political advertising: Effectiveness of advertisements and perceptions of candidates. En F. Biocca (Ed.), Television and political advertising (Vol. 1; pp. 245–262). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Boffone, T. (2022). TikTok cultures in the United States. Routledge Focus.
Bos, L., Van-Der-Brug, W., & De-Vreese, C. (2010). Media coverage of right-wing populist leaders. Communications, 35(2), 141–163. https://doi.org/10.1515/comm.2010.008
Brader, T. (2005). Striking a responsive chord: How political ads motivate and persuade voters by appealing to emotions. American Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 388–405. https://doi.org/10.2307/3647684
Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van-Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(28), 7313–7318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618923114
Brooks, D. J., & Geer, J. G. (2007). Beyond negativity: The effects of incivility on the electorate. American Journal of Political Science, 51(1), 1–16. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4122902
Campos-Campos, M. (2021). El partido republicano: El proyecto populista de la derecha radical chilena. Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, 30(1), 105–134. https://doi.org/10.26851/rucp.30.1.5
Ceron, A., & D’Adda, G. (2015). E-campaigning on Twitter: The effectiveness of distributive promises and negative campaign in the 2013 Italian election. New Media and Society, 18(9), 1935–1955. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815571915
Crigler, A., Just, M., & Belt, T. (2006). The three faces of negative campaigning: The democratic implications of attack ads, cynical news, and fear-arousing messages. En D. P. Redlawsk (Ed.), Feeling politics: Emotion in political information processing (pp. 135–163). Palgrave Macmillan.
DataReportal (2023). Digital 2023: Global overview report. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-global-overview-report
Downs, A. (1985). An economic theory of democracy. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
Duckitt, J. (2006). Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(5), 684–696. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205284282
Elmelund-Praestaker, C. (2010). Beyond American negativity: Toward a general understanding of the determinants of negative campaigning. European Political Science Review, 2(1), 137–156. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773909990269
Europa Press (23 de enero de 2023). El personal de TikTok selecciona vídeos y potencia su distribución para que obtengan visitas saltando el algoritmo. Europa Press. https://www.europapress.es/portaltic/socialmedia/noticia-personal-tiktok-selecciona-videos-potencia-distribucion-obtengan-visitas-saltando-algoritmo-20230123124215.html
Figuereo-Benítez, J. C., De-Oliveira, J. S., & Mancinas-Chávez, R. (2022). TikTok como herramienta de comunicación política de los presidentes iberoamericanos. En I. Aguaded, A. Vizcaíno-Verdú, Á. Hernando-Gómez, & M. Bonilla-del-Río (Eds.). Redes sociales y ciudadanía: Ciberculturas para el aprendizaje (pp. 103–112). Comunicar Ediciones. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=8763128
Finkel, S. E., & Geer, J. G. (1998). A spot check: Casting doubt on the demobilizing effect of attack advertising. American Journal of Political Science, 42(2), 573–595. https://doi.org/10.2307/2991771
Forti, S. (2021). Extrema derecha 2.0: Retos y amenazas en la era digital. Siglo XXI.
Frimer, J. A., Brandt, M. J., Melton, Z., & Motyl, M. (2019). Extremists on the left and right use angry, negative language. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(8), 1216–1231. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218809705
García-Beaudoux, V., Berrocal, S., D’Adamo, O., & Bruni, L. (2023). Estilos de liderazgo politico femenino en Instagram durante la Covid-19. Comunicar, 75, 129–138. https://doi.org/10.3916/C75-2023-10
García Beaudoux, V., & D’Adamo, O. (2013). Propuesta de una matriz de codificación para el análisis de las campañas negativas [Proposal of a codification matrix for the analysis of negative campaigns]. Opera, 13. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2443123
Geer, J. G. (2006). In defense of negativity: Attack ads in presidential campaigns. University of Chicago Press.
Geer, J. G. (2012). The news media and the rise of negativity in presidential campaigns. PS: Political Science & Politics, 45(3), 422–427. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096512000492
Goldhaber, M. H. (1997). The attention economy and the net. First Monday, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v2i4.519
Harrington, J. E., & Hess, G. D. (1996). A spatial theory of positive and negative campaigning. Games and Economic Behavior, 17(2), 209–229. https://doi.org/10.1006/game.1996.0103
Haselmayer, M. (2019). Negative campaigning and its consequences: A review and a look ahead. French Politics, 17, 355–372. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-019-00084-8
Herrman, J. (8 de junio de 2020). TikTok is shaping politics. But how. The New York Times.
Hunter, W., & Power, T. J. (2019). Bolsonaro and Brazil’s illiberal backlash. Journal of Democracy, 30(1), 68–82. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2019.0005
Jamieson, K. H., & Cappella, J. N. (1997). Setting the record straight: Do ad watches help or hurt? Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 2(1), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/1081180X97002001003
Jamieson, K., Waldman, P., & Sheer, S. (2000). Eliminate the negative? Defining and refining categories of analysis for political advertisements. En J. A. Thurber, C. J. Nelson, & D. Dulio (Eds.), Crowded airwaves. Brookings Institution 4o mini.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (2000). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. In D. Kahneman & A. Tversky (Eds.), Choices, values, and frames (pp. 17-43). Cambridge University Press.
Kepios (2023). Digital 2023: Global overview report. We Are Social. https://tinyurl.com/53r5wzzd
Krippendorff, K. (1990). Metodología de análisis de contenido: Teoría y práctica. Paidós.
Laponce, J. (1981). Left and Right. The topography of political perceptions. University or Toronto Press.
Lau, R. R., & Rovner, I. B. (2009). Negative campaigning. Annual Review of Political Science, 12, 285-306. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.071905.101448
Lelkes, Y., Sood, G., & Iyengar, S. (2017). The hostile audience: The effect of access to broadband Internet on partisan affect. American Journal of Political Science, 61(1), 5-20. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12237
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. Crown.
Lorenzo-Rodríguez, J., & Torcal, M. (2022). Twitter and affective polarisation: Following political leaders in Spain. South European Society and Politics, 27(1), 97-123. https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2022.2047554
Maier, M., & Ruhrmann, G. (2008). Celebrities in action and other news factors of German TV news 1992-2004: Results from a content analysis. Human Communication, 11(1), 201-218.
Nai, A. (2020). Going negative, worldwide: Towards a general understanding of determinants and targets of negative campaigning. Government and Opposition, 55(3), 430-455. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2018.32
Nai, A., & Sciarini, P. (2015). Why ‘going negative’? Strategic and situational determinants of personal attacks in Swiss direct democratic votes. Journal of Political Marketing, 17(4), 382-417. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2015.1058310
Nai, A., & Seeberg, H. B. (2018). A series of persuasive events: Sequencing effects of negative and positive messages on party evaluations and perceptions of negativity. Journal of Marketing Communications, 24(4), 412-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2018.1428672
Nai, A., & Walter, A. (Eds.). (2015). New perspectives on negative campaigning: Why attack politics matters. ECPR Press.
Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Otto, L. P., Lecheler, S., & Schuk, A. R. T. (2019). Is context the key? The (non-) differential effects of mediated incivility in three European countries. Political Communication, 37(1), 88-107. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1663324
PELA (s.f.). Proyecto Elites Latinoamericanas de la Universidad de Salamanca (PELA-USAL). https://tinyurl.com/yw2mry9z
Pineda-Rodríguez, N. K., Cardozo-Castañeda, N., & Cárdenas-Ruiz, J. D. (2023a). El tono negativo y la campaña negativa en la campaña por redes sociales de los candidatos de las consultas interpartidistas de 2022 [Tesis de pregrado, Universidad de La Sabana]. https://intellectum.unisabana.edu.co/handle/10818/54062
Pineda-Rodríguez, N. K., Cardozo-Castañeda, N., & Cárdenas-Ruiz, J. D. (2023b). Las consultas interpartidistas en las elecciones de 2022: Aproximación al uso de elementos de campaña negativa. Reflexión Política, 25(51), 6–12. https://doi.org/10.29375/01240781.4544
Robertson, C. E., Prollochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K., Pärnamets, P., Van-Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour, 7, 812-822. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4
Sarasqueta, G., Garreton, P., Sanda, D., & Leonangeli, B. (2022). Personalización, polarización y narrativas visuales: La campaña presidencial estadounidense de 2020 en la plataforma Instagram. Más Poder Local, 50, 67-83. https://doi.org/10.56151/maspoderlocal.104
Sartori, G. (2003) [1976]. Partidos y sistemas de partidos. Alianza Editorial.
Semrush (2023). The state of content marketing 2023 global report. http://bit.ly/4e4vRIR
Soroka, S. N. (2014). Negativity in democratic politics: Causes and consequences. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107477971
Soroka, S. N., Fournier, P., & Nir, P. L. (2019). Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(38), 18888-18892. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908369116
Suárez-Tomalá, G., & Cochea-Panchana, G. (2022). Marketing Político 2.0: Estrategias de storytelling a través de TikTok de los dos candidatos a presidente del Ecuador 2021. Revista Científica Arbitrada De Investigación En Comunicación, Marketing Y Empresa REICOMUNICAR, 5(9), 118-135. https://doi.org/10.46296/rc.v5i9.0039
TikTok (s.f.). Cuentas de gobiernos, personas que se dedican a la política y partidos políticos. https://tinyurl.com/y5kbnvw3
TikTok (2022). Actualizamos nuestras políticas de cuentas de gobierno, políticos y partidos. TikTok. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/es-latam/actualizamos-nuestras-politicas-de-cuentas-de-gobierno-politicos-y-partidos
Van-Hiel, A., Mervielde, I., & De-Fruyt, F. (2004). The relationship between maladaptive personality and right wing ideology. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(2), 405-417. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00105-3
Yoon, K., Pinkleton, B. E., & Ko, W. (2005). Effects of negative political advertising on voting intention: An exploration of the roles of involvement and source credibility in the development of voter cynicism. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11(2), 95-112. https://doi.org/10.1080/1352726042000315423