(H1) We expect that through their posts the politicians will seek primarily to “construct” a positive self-image, rather than “attack” their political opponents (partially accepted).
As already mentioned, relevant previous research on Instagram has shown that (Greek) politicians -independent of their political role- prioritized their self-presentation in a positive way over the “attack” against political opponents (Poulakidakos and Koutsikos, 2023). According to Fig. 1, Kyriakos Mitsotakis (the incumbent prime minister) appears to be almost totally dedicated to constructing a positive self-image, while the opposition leaders try to “balance” their TikTok strategy between a positive presentation of the self (mostly in the case of Nikos Androulakis) and attack to political opponents (mostly by Alexis Tsipras and Stefanos Kasselakis), mainly Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Thus, the rationale of confrontation (Lopez Fernandez, 2022: 223) is chosen mostly by the opposition leaders, who use it in order to serve their communication purposes. This finding suggests a usage pattern on TikTok reminiscent of the communication strategy observed on Twitter/X posts (Poulakidakos and Veneti, 2016), where opposition leaders primarily aim to undermine their political opponents rather than focus on portraying themselves positively, as seen in relevant research on Instagram. This observation underscores the significance of spoken content in TikTok videos and highlights a key distinction between TikTok and Instagram. Despite both platforms being image-centric (utilizing still images and videos), the use of spoken language in TikTok videos might be employed to “attack” political opponents, more akin to the approach seen on Twitter/X.
Positive self-image or “attack” to political opponents per politician (chi-square p value < 0.001).
In terms of the different periods of our research (non-electoral vs. electoral), our results demonstrate that politicians seek to develop a positive self-image more systematically during the electoral period (Fig. 2). This is a rather interesting finding, especially for the polarized Greek political scene, in which the rationale of mutual blaming is a common practice (Poulakidakos and Veneti, 2016), especially during pre-electoral periods. Politicians in TikTok appear to have prioritized—at least during the 2023 general elections period—the promotion of their own image over the “attack” against their political opponents.
Positive self-image or “attack” to political opponents per politician (chi-square p value < 0.001).
Both Figs. 1 and 2 lead us to partially accept our first hypothesis, since among all politicians, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and—to a lesser extent—Nikos Androulakis focus on the cultivation of a positive self image, while Alexis Tsipras and Stefanos Kasselakis appear to primarily “attack” their political opponent(s). In a similar vein, the creation of a positive self-image seems to dominate the electoral period, but not the non-electoral period.
(H2) We expect that the vast majority of the posts in each politician’s account will include a depiction of the politician her/himself (accepted).
While it may seem obvious that politicians in SMPs prioritize self-depiction, previous research indicates that even on the visually oriented platform Instagram, political content often takes precedence over personal appearance. For instance, Fofi Gennimata’s posts, nearly half of which featured party material (Poulakidakos and Giannouli, 2019), exemplify this trend. TikTok posts, though, tend to place a greater emphasis on the self-presentation of politicians. As demonstrated in Fig. 3, the vast majority of posts (up to 99% for Kyriakos Mitsotakis) depict politicians either alone or with other people. Hence, the propagation of the political image appears to be more personified than ever before.
Self-depiction of the politicians in their posts (chi-square p value = 0.121).
(Q1) How intense is the effort of the politicians to connect with various social actors?
The connectivity of politicians with different actors (other politicians, celebrities, citizens) appears to be a strategy that seeks to create symbolic ties between individual politicians and various spheres of society (Ekman and Widholm, 2017). According to Table 1, Alexis Tsipras appears to demonstrate his connection to various actors with a mean of 0.5 connectivity instances per post, followed by Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Nikos Androulakis, both with 0.41 connectivity instances per post. The maximum number of connectivity instances per politician found in several posts is two, while the minimum is zero. On his behalf, Stefanos Kasselakis does not seem to rely much on connectivity through his posts (mean of 0.16 connectivity instances per post).
In addition, as shown in Table 2, the connectivity instances—as anticipated—increase significantly during the electoral period of our study, since politicians are on tour meeting both officially and unofficially with various social groups.
Seeking to obtain a more detailed picture of the connectivity instances for each politician, we found out that in the vast majority of such instances, all politicians seek to connect with citizens-potential voters, with Alexis Tsipras seeking to depict more systematically this aspect compared to the rest of the politicians of our research in almost 40% of his videos (Table 3). This finding differs partially from previous research on Instagram, according to which opposition leaders appeared more eager to connect with citizens, while the then-prime minister Alexis Tsipras underlined his connectivity with other politicians (Poulakidakos and Giannouli, 2019).
(Q2) How intense is the effort of the politicians to present the viewers with instances of their political activities (both official and unofficial)?
As Table 4 shows, politicians present the viewers with several instances of their political activities. Nikos Androulakis with a mean of 1.54 political instances per video, and Stefanos Kasselakis with 1.43 political instances per video, appear to be more extrovert in terms of presenting their political activities.
In terms of the political activity of the politicians, the fact that the projection of political instances is being reduced during the electoral period of our research signifies a rationale of “depoliticization” of the content uploaded by the politicians of our research before the elections (Table 5). Hence, politicians appear to rely on depoliticized content during the most “critical” periods (pre-election), further reinforcing the depoliticization of publicly articulated political discourse. This reduction, though, does not appear to be a statistically significant one.
A more detailed overview on the specific instances of political activity promoted by the politicians is provided in Table 6. As it emerges from our data entry, the reference to policies or political proposals of rivals in order to criticize them is implemented mainly by the leaders of the opposition parties of SYRIZA (Alexis Tsipras, Stefanos Kasselakis), and PASOK (Nikos Androulakis). On the other hand, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, being the incumbent prime minister, seeks to praise his own government policies.
(Q3) How intense is the effort of the politicians to present themselves as “ordinary” people?
As already mentioned, ordinariness refers to the quality or state of being ordinary, common, usual, or typical (Luebke, 2021; Luebke and Engelmann, 2023). The concept of ordinariness is closely tied to routine, familiarity, and the mundane aspects of life that are shared by most people. This “ordinariness” rationale includes -among others- a “depoliticization” of political discourse and an increased infotainment rationale since it combines humor, individualization, and privatization of political figures (Ekman and Widholm, 2017; Umansky and Pipal, 2023). According to Table 7, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the one who “invests” more in crafting an “ordinary” profile, followed by Stefanos Kasselakis. On the other hand, Nikos Androulakis and Alexis Tsipras do not appear to invest that much in the creation of an “ordinary” persona through their TikTok posts.
As regards the distinction between electoral and non-electoral periods, the rationale of ordinariness appears to be significantly increased during electoral periods (Table 8). This result appears to be aligned with the depoliticization of the articulated political discourse through TikTok.
According to Table 9, Alexis Tsipras is mostly making use of humoristic elements (in 59 posts), while Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Nikos Androulakis and Stefanos Kasselakis choose to “build” their ordinariness mainly through addressing the TikTok users in a direct way (Mitsotakis-58 posts, Androulakis-14 posts, Kasselakis 32 posts). We have to note at this point that this direct address is by far the most prevalent method used by Stefanos Kasselakis since he has used this method in 32 out of a total of 44 posts included in our research (approximately 73%). Notwithstanding the existence of videos addressing directly the users of TikTok, politicians seem rather reluctant to engage in a dialogue with the users, since only a limited number of videos show politicians answering user/citizen questions (four videos for Alexis Tsipras and 13 videos for Kyriakos Mitsotakis and none for the other two political leaders).
(Q4) To what extent are the different communicative styles (connectivity, political performance, ordinariness) associated with viewer engagement?
Seeking to assess the different communication styles of the politicians, according to the different indexes created for the sake of the current research (connectivity, political performance, ordinariness) in terms of their correlation to the viewer engagement scale (views+likes+comments+shares), we have conducted a correlation analysis. According to Table 10, the viewer engagement scale has a strong positive correlation with the index of ordinariness, while the viewer engagement scale has a weak negative correlation with the index of political activity. Thus, on the one hand, the greater the inclusion of “ordinariness” elements in a video/post, the higher the level of user engagement with that content. On the other hand, the more “political” a video/post becomes, the lower its viewer engagement tends to be. As far as the connectivity index is concerned, it does not seem to have any statistically significant correlation with the viewer engagement scale.