FRAMING, EMOTIONS, AND ENGAGEMENT: POLITICAL PARTIES' COMMUNICATION ON FACEBOOK IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The current study is an exploration of the role of political communication in engagement-led discourse in Pakistan which is being analyzed at the level of the framing strategies of major political parties on Facebook. Although there is a lot of research on the polarizing effects of social media, little focus has been placed on the ways in which political actors strategically assemble messages in algorithmic structured environments. This study examines the patterns of framing, emotional tone and user engagement in the response to the question based on quantitative content analysis of 218 Facebook messages from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PMLN), and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Results show that the general public tends to be more emotionally, morally, and human interest framed and policy oriented framing is somewhat marginal. There are significant differences in use of conflict and responsibility framing by party with adversarial content getting higher engagement – especially in numbers of shares. The study suggests that the incentives associated with using Facebook as a platform are pushing political communication towards more affective, more conflict, and more strategic messages designed to maximize visibility, rather than to inform citizens. The findings add to the knowledge on the reconfiguration of political communication via digital platforms in emerging democracies.