Political Public Relations on the Net: A Relationship Management Perspective

Research on relationship management in digital political public relations is scarce. Departing from a relationship management perspective, then, this study seeks to contribute to the field of political public relations by investigating whether political parties take advantage of what digital media platforms offer in terms of long-term commitment and reciprocity utilizing the Swedish national election in 2010 as a case study. The results show that the political parties utilized social media outlets primarily during and just before the time of the election and that interaction between parties and constituents were scarce and shallow. All parties shared the same pattern of activity, although there were some differences in the frequencies of use. Additionally, although user commitment increased over time, there were relatively few users who chose to follow/friend the political parties, suggesting that the large majority of the voters could not easily be reached through these platforms. In essence, the results indicate that social media as a political public relations tool is, so far, dwarfed by more traditional and analogue approaches.