Elisa Kannasto “I am horrified by all kinds of persona worship!” Constructing Personal Brands of Politicians on Facebook  ACTA WASAENSIA 468 ACADEMIC DISSERTATION! To be presented, with the permission of the Board of the School of Marketing and Communication of the University of Vaasa, for public examination on the 3rd of December, 2021, at noon.! Reviewers Professor Juha Herkman University of Helsinki Faculty of Social Sciences Media and Communication Studies P.O. Box 54 FI-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI Finland Associate Professor Iina Hellsten University of Amsterdam Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Corporate Communication Postbus 15791 1001 NG AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS! III Julkaisija Julkaisupäivämäärä Vaasan yliopisto Marraskuu 2021 Tekijä(t) Julkaisun tyyppi Elisa Kannasto Väitöskirja ORCID tunniste Julkaisusarjan nimi, osan numero https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1758- 982X Acta Wasaensia, 468 Yhteystiedot ISBN Vaasan yliopisto Markkinoinnin ja viestinnän yksikkö Viestintätieteet PL 700 FI-65101 VAASA 978-952-476-982-2 (painettu) 978-952-476-983-9 (verkkoaineisto) https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-476-983-9 ISSN 0355-2667 (Acta Wasaensia 468, painettu) 2323-9123 (Acta Wasaensia 468, verkkoaineisto) Sivumäärä Kieli 370 englanti Julkaisun nimike ”Minua kammoksuttaa kaikenlainen henkilöpalvonta!” – Poliitikkojen henkilöbrändien rakentuminen Facebookissa Tiivistelmä Vaalikampanjoiden aikana poliitikkojen henkilöbrändit ovat merkittävä osa kampanja- viestintää. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää, miten poliitikkojen henkilöbrändit rakentuvat ja manifestoituvat Facebookissa poliittisen kampanjan aikana Suomessa. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu 18 ehdokkaan julkisen Facebook-sivun sisällöistä vuoden 2019 eduskuntavaalikampanjassa. Henkilöbrändien rakentumista analysoidaan sisällön- analyysillä yhdistelemällä eri teorioita henkilöitymisestä ja itsensä esittämisestä. Poliitikkojen henkilöbrändit ovat kollektiivisesti tuotettuja prosesseja, joissa rakennetaan lisäarvoa ehdokkaiden tunnettuudelle ja julkiselle minäkuvalle. Analyysissa löydettiin kuusi poliittisen identiteetin esittämismuotoa, jotka edustavat erilaisia henkilöbrändityyppejä: kuunteleva poliitikko, asiapoliitikko, tiedottava poliitikko, humaani poliitikko, verkostoituva poliitikko ja ammattipoliitikko. Analyysi vahvistaa Facebookin merkityksen kampanjaviestinnässä ja yhteiskunnallisessa keskustelussa. Vuorovaikutuksen puute ja rajallinen henkilökohtainen sisältö poliitikkojen Facebook- viestinnässä näkyy selvästi aineistossa ja osoittaa, että suomalaisessa kampanja- viestinnässä Facebookia käytetään yksisuuntaiseen informaation levittämiseen, jolloin alustan mahdollisuudet jäävät osittain hyödyntämättä. Asiasanat Facebook, kampanjaviestintä, poliitikon henkilöbrändi, poliitikot, sosiaalinen media, verkkokeskustelu V Publisher Date of publication Vaasan yliopisto November 2021 Author(s) Type of publication Elisa Kannasto Doctoral thesis ORCID identifier Name and number of series https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1758- 982X Acta Wasaensia, 468 Contact information ISBN University of Vaasa School of Marketing and Communication Communication Studies P.O. Box 700 FI-65101 Vaasa Finland 978-952-476-982-2 (print) 978-952-476-983-9 (online) https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-476-983-9 ISSN 0355-2667 (Acta Wasaensia 468, print) 2323-9123 (Acta Wasaensia 468, online) Number of pages Language 370 English Title of publication “I am horrified by all kinds of persona worship!” Constructing Personal Brands of Politicians on Facebook Abstract During political campaigns personal brands of politicians have a significant role in campaign communication. The aim of this study is to investigate how personal brands of politicians are constructed, negotiated, and manifested on Facebook during an election campaign in Finland. The data consists of the public Facebook pages of 18 candidates from the 2019 parliamentary election. The construction of personal brands is analyzed by using a data-based content analysis combining earlier research on personalization and self-representation. Politicians' personal brands are collectively negotiated processes that produce added value for the candidates' recognition and persona. Six brand type representations are identified in the analysis: the listening politician, the topic politician, the informing politician, the humane politician, the networking politician, and the professional politician. The analysis demonstrates Facebook's relevance for campaign communication and societal discussion. The lack of interaction and limited personal content in the Facebook communication of the candidates is prominent in the data and shows that in Finnish campaign communication, Facebook is mainly used for one-way communication and distributing information. Thus, the affordances of the platform remain under-utilized. Keywords campaign communication, Facebook, online discussion, persona, political personal branding VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENT When I was growing up, it seemed strange how US politicians would promote their families while promoting their own candidacy. With the emergence of social media and globalization, I wondered if this would one day take place in Finland as well. The questions of family and love life have been less visible in Finnish politics, but politicians have received their fair share of personal life exposés and attacks. However, how much their private personas matter and how much they should bring to the front stage for the public to see can be debated. As a professional politician, one opens their character to question, their persona to the media, and their values to the public. As a personal brand, a politician is constantly the subject of debate and always under suspicion. Professional, private and intimate overlap and intertwine, without the possibility to decide when the public role starts and where it ends. This fascinating mix of represented personas together with my love for social media and its phenomena inspired me to challenge myself to explore the personas of Finnish politicians on Facebook, a platform which has since its early beginnings helped me explore and understand communities, conversations and networking. I truly appreciate the valuable comments of both of my supervisors, Professor Tanja Sihvonen and Professor Merja Koskela, who have helped me sharpen my ideas and research questions, polish my text production and structure, and also how I approach scientific writing and research. Thank you for including me in the community of the University of Vaasa, which has since my first study year been my academic home and the one place where the hallways always felt grand but inclusive. I am grateful for all the members of the academic research community of the School of Marketing and Communications who I have had the chance to meet and collaborate with during this process. I want to thank both of the pre-examiners of this dissertation, Professor Juha Herkman and Associate Professor Iina Hellsten for their insightful statements which helped me greatly develop this study to its final form. Thank you for contributing your experience and knowledge and guiding me how to make this dissertation stronger. I am extremely honored and pleased to have Professor Herkman as my opponent in the public examination. I also want to thank the C.V. Åkerlund foundation, both for a personal grant, and for funding a research project in the University of Tampere where I have had the opportunity to work with and learn from Professor Pekka Isotalus and doctoral candidate Laura Paatelainen. I have truly enjoyed the warm welcome I have VIII received in the research community in Tampere University’s Research Centre Comet. Thank you to Docent Salla-Maaria Laaksonen for your valuable comments, help and support with all those big and small things where I have sought mentorship, guidance and inspiration. I am proud to call you a friend, in addition to all the collaboration that has taken place between us both in research and in building our community! I also want to thank the Rajapinta research community and its members for sharing ideas, figuring out the ethical considerations regarding the new data and methods we work with, inspiring this and future research, and offering me a community of like-minded people where we continue to network and develop research. I would not be where I am today without the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences which has offered me possibilities to travel and present my work abroad, to focus on my research while working and develop my professional growth, and most of all introduced me to a supportive team of colleagues. Thank you Ari Haasio for mentorship and co-authoring; Heli Simon, Anne-Maria Aho, Anmari Viljamaa, Elina Varamäki and all my colleagues for your support, collaboration in teaching, writing, research, and for building a community where we can all develop ourselves and the future by working to educate future experts! For all those hard moments when I have needed to vent, pitch ideas, second guess myself, think about anything else other than my PhD, and to collect positive energy: Sande, I cannot imagine not having had you motivating me and being my sounding board when I came up with the most crucial steps in this process. Jensba, your friendship, support and motivation was always there when I needed someone to keep me on track! Anne, thank you for all those walks, motivation and being the family you are to me! Thank you Kaisu – those Excels and spread sheets would have never become a reality without your patience, so thank you for teaching me how to beat Excel when needed! There are so many of you who have listened to me ramble on about this project, who have cheered successes, and lifted my mood when needed - thank you all who I have had and still have the honor to call my friends through all these adventures. While this dissertation has traveled with me around the world on conferences, teaching exchanges, training projects, summer jobs and vacations, the best places to write and finish some of my academic thinking have been with my California family Lucy, Linda and Lee, and my remote office in Emola. Thank you Jari and Kirsi for your support and for opening your home and hearts to me! Thank you Miska for chasing the sun with me, for adventuring and exploring, for pushing me to always do my best, – and for dancing with me. IX This one is for all the politicians who take the scrutiny, and who continue to work hard presenting our society and trying to make it better. This one is for the public who discuss things and make sure that voices, especially the critical ones, are heard. This one is for the public sphere(s) and for hybrid media! This one is for research and academia! This one is for the personas! In Vaasa, after the last finishing touches, October 2021 Elisa XI Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................................................... VII! 1! INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 1! 1.1! Aim and Research Questions ................................................... 5! 1.2! Methodology and Data .......................................................... 11! 1.3! Central Concepts .................................................................. 13! 1.4! Structure of the Study ........................................................... 18! 2! SOCIAL MEDIA IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS ........................................ 21! 2.1! Political Communication and Politicians in Finland ................ 25! 2.1.1! Finnish election campaigns ..................................... 27! 2.1.2! Politician as a professional role ............................... 33! 2.2! Strategic Campaigning in Social Media .................................. 36! 2.2.1! Arenas and content of campaigning ........................ 39! 2.2.2! Target audience ...................................................... 44! 2.2.3! From audience to users .......................................... 45! 2.3! Platformed Interaction and the Electorate .............................. 48! 2.3.1! Characteristics of online discussions ...................... 51! 2.3.2! Disruptive intercommunication? ............................. 57! 2.4! Facebook Campaign Pages and Profiles ................................. 61! 2.4.1! Facebook as a platform for reaching the public ...... 63! 2.4.2! Facebook functions ................................................ 68! 2.4.3! Facebook Public Page and Feed .............................. 71! 3! POLITICIAN’S BRANDS AND PERSONAS ............................................ 74! 3.1! Identity as a Base for Persona ................................................ 75! 3.1.1! Identity as a process ............................................... 78! 3.1.2! Online identity as self-determined representation ... 82! 3.2! Persona – the Public Self ........................................................ 89! 3.2.1! Politicians’ personas ............................................... 91! 3.2.2! Personas in campaigns ........................................... 95! 3.3! Personal Brand of a Politician ................................................ 97! 3.3.1! Personalization and personal brands ...................... 99! 3.3.2! Affordances of Facebook for personal brands ....... 103! 3.4! Professional, Private, and Intimate Boundaries ..................... 111! 3.4.1! Celebrity politicians .............................................. 112! 3.4.2! Negotiating professional, private, and intimate ..... 115! 3.5! Personal Brand, Persona and Identity in this Study ............... 118! 4! RESEARCHING PERSONAL BRAND CONSTRUCTION ON FACEBOOK .. 125! 4.1! Analyzing Social Media and Personal Brands ........................ 125! 4.2! Analysis Models and Methodology ....................................... 128! 4.3! Data Collection ................................................................... 133! 4.4! Credibility, Validity and Reliability ....................................... 142! 4.5! Ethical Considerations ......................................................... 144! 5! CANDIDATES CONSTRUCTING PERSONAL BRANDS ......................... 150! XII 5.1! Content in the Posts ............................................................ 151! 5.2! Posts as Acts to Negotiate the Brand ................................... 157! 5.2.1! Informing the electorate ....................................... 158! 5.2.2! No expressions of interest .................................... 161! 5.2.3! Glimpses into the personal life ............................. 161! 5.2.4! Gratitude by the end of the campaign ................... 167! 5.2.5! Meet me, join me ................................................. 168! 5.2.6! Watch me, read me ............................................... 174! 5.2.7! Vote for our party leader ...................................... 176! 5.3! Replying to Comments ........................................................ 179! 5.4! Summarizing the Analysis of the Posts ................................ 182! 6! POLITICIANS’ PERSONAL BRANDS CONSTRUCTED BY THE PUBLIC ... 184! 6.1! Large Support Expressed in the Content ............................. 187! 6.2! Comments as Acts to Negotiate the Brand .......................... 192! 6.2.1! How about my issue? ............................................ 193! 6.2.2! Direct attacks and strong criticism ....................... 196! 6.2.3! Sharing personal information ............................... 203! 6.2.4! Socializing with the candidates ............................. 209! 6.2.5! Praising and expressing support .......................... 212! 6.2.6! Sign and share this initiative ................................. 217! 6.2.7! Nice job on the debate ......................................... 217! 6.3! Engagement with Candidates .............................................. 221! 7! DISCUSSION .................................................................................. 231! 7.1! Dual Actor Model in Brand Construction .............................. 233! 7.2! The Finnish Politician – Brand Representations .................... 237! 7.2.1! Dimensions of professional, private and intimate in brand representations .......................................... 241! 7.2.2! Engagement ......................................................... 248! 7.2.3! Added exposure ................................................... 256! 7.3! Social media as a Campaign Game Changer? ....................... 259! 7.3.1! Under-utilized possibilities ................................... 262! 7.3.2! Facebook content ................................................. 266! 7.3.3! Strategic campaign communication ...................... 271! 7.4! Recommendations .............................................................. 277! 7.4.1! Branding for politicians ........................................ 278! 7.4.2! Development and call for research ....................... 284! 7.5! Considerations .................................................................... 286! 8! CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 292! REFERENCES ....................................................................................... 303! APPENDICES ....................................................................................... 341! Appendix 1. Data collection table ................................................. 341! Appendix 2. Post examples A1-A35 (continues) ............................ 342! Appendix 3. Example comments B1-B61 (continues) ..................... 349! XIII Figures Figure 1.! The concept of personalization. ..................................... 12! Figure 2.! Flow and effects of personal brand and image online ..... 16! Figure 3.! Arenas of election campaign communication ................. 40! Figure 4.! Factors influencing a political candidate´s campaigning on social media ............................................................. 40! Figure 5.! Communication flow in political communication ............ 47! Figure 6.! Social media profile of a political party and candidate .... 62! Figure 7.! Example page outlook and post from candidate Pekka Haavisto ........................................................................ 72! Figure 8.! Example ‘About’ page of a politician .............................. 73! Figure 9.! Personal brand of a politician in relation to persona and identity .......................................................................... 75! Figure 10.! Online identity models. .................................................. 86! Figure 11.! Five dimensions of persona ........................................... 93! Figure 12.! Five types of academic persona ..................................... 94! Figure 13.! The celebrity politician ................................................. 114! Figure 14.! The politician’s persona ............................................... 116! Figure 15.! The process of forming a politician’s personal brand ... 120! Figure 16.! Political persona and different types of self .................. 123! Figure 17.! Research Questions ..................................................... 126! Figure 18.! Post types .................................................................... 158! Figure 19.! Comment types ........................................................... 193! Figure 20.! Brand types in dimensions ........................................... 242! Tables Table 1.! Facebook affordances for personal brand construction 106! Table 2.! The data in numbers and vote count for the candidates134! Table 3.! Background of the candidates ..................................... 136! Table 4.! The excluded candidate Jussi Halla-aho ....................... 138! Table 5.! Content production of responding candidates ............. 140! Table 6.! Non-respondent candidates ......................................... 141! Table 7.! Post categories and coding .......................................... 152! Table 8.! Most visible content on posts ...................................... 154! Table 9.! Less visible content ..................................................... 156! Table 10.! Responding in replies .................................................. 180! Table 11.! Comments categories and coding ................................ 185! Table 12.! Most visible content in the comments ......................... 189! Table 13.! Visible content in the comments ................................. 190! Table 14.! Less visible content in the comments .......................... 191! Table 15.! Reactions for candidates ............................................. 224! Table 16.! Total engagement for each candidate .......................... 225! 1! INTRODUCTION In Western democracies, politicians are selected to represent the people and make decisions. But just as society consists of a heterogeneous group of individuals, so do politicians and elected representatives. They are parents, athletes, academics, employers, CEOs, and media celebrities. Once elected, they become public personas subject to continuous public scrutiny, and take on a job where someone will always be disappointed with compromises and decisions. This results from negotiations that often contradict the values of the individual politician as well, in which case owning the criticism can seem unjustified. This prompts the question as to whether individual voting decisions are made based on who the politician is, or what they represent? Political candidates need to be appealing enough to get enough votes to become elected. While campaigning is hard work, the real duty only begins after a successful campaign and voting results. However, politicians represent the people. They influence and make decisions affecting society and their own constituents. Also, they represent those who do not even recognize or agree with them. Their decisions should be based on their personal values and beliefs, but at the same time, they need to regard themselves as members of their parties and make decisions based on any information, influence and negotiations that have taken place with their fellow party members. The Finnish political system is a parliamentary representative democracy. Democracy has been afforded the highest value in the Finnish political system ever since the country became independent in 1917, following centuries of being governed by Russia and Sweden. With democracy in a republic deeply devoted to equality and the freedom of speech, free elections guarantee the functions of the political system. The system and how it is constituted highlight an individual’s importance, personality, capabilities, and experience (von Schoultz, Järvi & Mattila, 2020: 170). In Finland, the President is elected every six years, the Government and the Parliament are the highest levels in state administration, and their primary operative legislation is the Constitution act (Parliament of Finland, 2020). Parliamentary elections are held every four years on the third Sunday of April. A total of 200 members from 13 districts are elected according to proportional representation system, following the D'Hondt method, from 13 districts. The Finnish multi-party system enables several parties to sit within the government. Party votes matter because the majority party usually earns the prime minister position and has more power in determining the government. According to von Schoultz (2016: 159, 173–174), this highlights the significance of the party 2 Acta Wasaensia leader. They are often represented in the party communication, head the campaign communication, and give their all for the party and its candidates. Overall, the Finnish campaign context is considered to be person-centered compared to most European electoral systems. The open list election and relative election system give more focus and role to individual politicians, and turn the focus toward them instead of the party election agenda. In an open list system, individual politicians also compete with their own party candidates. A robust personal campaign is therefore the core of the Finnish election system, as every candidate must convince the constituents that they are the best option on their party's list (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 296). The Finnish multi-party system has been criticized for having parties and candidates too close to each other, with minimal diverging features. The key topic issues that parties communicate can position brand elements to distinguish between individual parties and candidates if the overall agenda-setting seems similar. According to Kestilä-Kekkonen and von Schoultz (2020: 18), in 2o19, there were 2,468 candidates in the Finnish Parliamentary election, and 165 of the elected candidates acted at the time of elections as representatives. However, a remarkable change seen in the 2019 election was that none of the parties received over 20 % of the votes. Hence, the government needed to be formed from among five parties that had received a similar number of votes. Three parties eventually formed the government, and the opposition was left with an usually strong mandate from their voters. In Finland, election campaign communication is conducted in the media through the national broadcasting company, commercial television and media offices, newspapers and tabloids, and through advertisements in public places put up by both parties and individual candidates. The municipalities must offer an equal opportunity regarding location and payment for all candidates for advertising in public places (Act on Candidate’s Election Funding 24.4.2009/273), and campaign events are also central for meeting the public and visiting the electoral district. In addition to this, candidates and parties set up social media profiles and conduct targeted social media advertising, either managed by themselves, hired personnel, or an outside PR agency. The campaign communication is not strictly regulated except for an electoral peace on the voting day, and ballot secrecy which respects the individual's right to keep their vote a secret. However, paid advertising must also declare the party funding the commercial (Ibid.). Transformations in society and publicity challenge candidates to manage divergent publics. Castell's (2007) network society has developed into what Chadwick (2013) describes as a hybrid media environment. This communicative Acta Wasaensia 3 environment constantly transforms, and the idea of people and machines working collaboratively through artificial intelligence is no longer a movie script illusion. The idea of the public sphere introduced by Habermas (1989) setting a rational- critical debate, has started forming also online, transforming the arena for public discussion into a global, real-time and more public sphere than ever before. Lately, a debate on whether the public sphere has transformed, moved or expanded has been on-going, as researchers have been trying to contextualize social media as a particular kind of site for public discussion. As Cornfield (2004: 107) and van Dijck (2010) argue, the internet and social media have not necessarily become the new public sphere (see Habermas, 1989) where public opinions form, mainly because of still limited access and differences between societies. However, it has become an additional one, and the online world is now hosting outlets for social interaction that provide important and widely used public discussion forums. The online world is a parallel environment to the physical one, and they both set the stage for cultures and societies to form and develop (Laaksonen, Matikainen & Tikka, 2013: 12, 14). Usually, these stages co-exist and are co-dependent. Therefore, a closer look at online discussions can reflect how public perceptions form, and also what their perceptions on different topics are (Laaksonen & Matikainen, 2013: 208), in order to plan more effective strategic approaches to online communication in political campaigns. As concluded by several researchers, media and politicians are significant users of power (Railo, 2011: 31). However, in regard to the public's role and significance in campaign communications, there are still gaps in the current research. Citizen debates in social media become active during elections. Discussions that used to take place in public forums and coffee houses, or in emails and online bulletin boards are now moving on to media such as discussion threads under Facebook posts, Instagram comments under engaging pictures, and tweets communicating through hashtags and tagged individuals. Hakala and Vesa (2013: 201, 233) argue that the themes in online discussions do not follow mainstream media content. But even though social media allows a separation from large media companies, social media channels are not entirely separate from traditional media (Herkman, 2011: 21). For example, there has been an increase in news articles using an individual's Instagram or Facebook post as their source, and for political news, Twitter is reported to influence journalism (Jungherr, 2014; Parmelee, 2013). This manifests Chadwick's (2013) hybrid media environment in practice, where traditional and new media types supplement and feed on each other in a dynamic interaction (Neuman, 2014). 4 Acta Wasaensia In social media, the political candidates who can create a synergy between traditional media and social media can become influential and show their personal side to the public (Karlsen & Enjolras, 2016). Political campaigns can gain momentum and exposure on social media, and the content may be used as topics for produced news. Accordingly, the more professional media and journalists are, the more strategic communication is needed from those communicating about politics (Herkman, 2011: 25). While there is an excessive number of messages online, exposure and visibility in this context need to be earned. Social media works as a functioning tool to enable this process by allowing faster and more temporary networking (Matheson, 2016: 195–196). However, its use is also resource-intensive. Benefiting from the affordances of different online platforms requires skill, and politicians use social media in managed ways for mobilizing and extending calls for participation, for example, by liking their page, and following or attending events. Like every aspect of marketing, politics, especially in campaigning, is becoming more personalized. The use of social media in campaigns has been suggested to add personalization (Enli & Skogerbø, 2013; Isotalus, 2017; Meeks, 2017; Small, 2017). Yet connections are not made just by clicking, and an authentic interaction is needed to influence the public. However, as Enli (2015a; 2015b) proposes, an illusion of authenticity may be sufficient for successful personal brands to emerge. Finstad and Isotalus (2005) highlight a politician's role as a communicative actor whose success depends on communication competence. The online world, especially social media, has made everyone a public figure. Politicians are discussed widely because their decisions have an effect on everyone and everywhere. Social media has changed the way people speak to and about each other, and it has made everything both personal and public at the same time. The logic of Facebook guides everyone towards a more personal content, and while this allows connecting through authentic and open interaction, it is unclear how many can turn it to their advantage. But it is clear that users have become better at exploiting its functioning logic as self-branding tools (Enli, 2015a; Marwick & boyd, 2011; van Dijck, 2013), and because of this persona literacy, an understanding of the public self's formation and presentation online (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 129) is required to interpret and filter these professionalized public representations. Rising from the increased focus on individuals in social media and increased discussion on personal brands, the concept of branding has been suggested to also be applied to people in different roles (Enli, 2015a; van Dijck, 2013). This idea is not new though, and the act of ‘selling’ politicians to the public has been discussed in research before political marketing was referred as political branding (see Acta Wasaensia 5 Sheinkopf, 1974). Importantly, a brand separates someone from other people, and makes them unique. But simultaneously, they separate the person from the idea of the humane, in that they provoke feelings, and those affected neglect the idea that these personal brands are in fact real individuals. This has had hard consequences, and with its added interest in people and public discussion, social media has also brought bullying and public shaming onto the platforms (Picard, 2015). Politicians are directly attacked for their persona and even their families, but are expected to manage this public scrutiny because of their career choice and its public nature. They are also expected to take responsibility for each decision the government and parliament make, regardless of their personal stance. Railo (2011) suggests in his dissertation on politics and journalism that ‘personal is political’. In this dissertation, I also argue that politics is personal in the regard that constituents connect with politicians and political candidates on a more personal level and engage in the political discussion online, not only politically but with emotion and a deep interest in the individuals and their character. As a result, we can see that the personal branding of the politician is the result of this line of interaction, or their attempts to establish it. Without understanding personal branding and its implications, it is easy to be left with the idea that people are now being treated materially, and that brands only revolve around money. However, with people, especially personas in politics, it is about influence and power, and a strong personal brand of a politician can give them leverage in negotiations, more influence on pressing matters, and credibility as experts within their field. When running as a candidate, a strong personal brand is a considerable resource for exposure, value, sharing information, and raising public interest. However, it is by no means easily defined as to what makes a personal brand successful, which type of politicians appeal to the people, and how politicians' personal brands can be managed, controlled and strategically communicated. Railo et al. (2016: 23) suggest that no one is as innovative as a Finn wanting to get into parliament, but how does that innovation manifest in the construction of their personal brand? 1.1! Aim and Research Questions The aim of this study is to investigate how personal brands of politicians are constructed, negotiated and manifested on Facebook during an election campaign in Finland. The personal brands of politicians are the publicly marketed self- representations of politicians. While the context and focus of this study are elections and campaign communication, it needs to be remembered that the construction of politicians' personal brands is a continuous process that also takes 6 Acta Wasaensia place outside the active campaign period. However, this study only analyzes the one-month period before the elections, during which communications are understandably more active. Additionally, brands do not result only from the acknowledged construction process, but are negotiated collectively, and there are also coincidental aspects as to what connects an individual and their brand. However, it is the acts of communication that are specifically analyzed in this study. The focus of this study is on the Facebook communication of the Finnish political candidates and the public during the parliamentary election campaign of 2019. The research questions are as follows: 1.! How are politicians’ brands constructed in their Facebook posts? 2.! How are politicians’ brands constructed in the comments to these posts? These research questions direct the research on politicians' brand construction to consider two perspectives: the politicians themselves, and the public participating in the communication activities on the politicians’ pages. These two main questions are further elaborated in section 4.1. The premise of this study is that as Herkman (2011: 22–29) concludes, Finnish political communication has become mediatized, following the general trend in Western democracies. Isotalus (2017: 22–24) argues that the United States has led the process where media's significance and its repercussions have increased in relation to political actors and activities. This has increased personalization and the focus on individual politicians or their private life in politics, thereby fostering both the construction and significance of political personal brands. Personas as representations of these brands have become more prominent than topic issues, and the importance of persona is highlighted through different media (Enli, 2015a; Isotalus & Almonkari, 2011; 2014; van Dijck, 2013; von Schoultz, 2016: 160–161), thus accentuating the need for persona literacy (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 129). Karvonen (2009: 98) states that the Finnish political system makes it interesting to study personalization because the voter always makes both a person and a party choice when casting their vote. Since 2007, the person's importance over the party has declined from 51% to 37% among the electorate (Isotalo et al., 2019: 16). In parliamentary elections, the prime minister's highlighted role is significant to voting (Karvonen, 2009: 103). Therefore, while attitudes to individual candidates are significant, parties also matter. Especially in the Finnish elections of 2011 and Acta Wasaensia 7 2015, party leaders were used as leading figures for the campaign, and viewed as central for exposure, attention, and appeal of the party and other candidates (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 232–233, 307). In some cases, parties are only as strong as their leaders, and critique towards party leaders can decrease the overall popularity of the party. In 2019, this was suggested to be the case with the Social Democratic Party and their party leader. However, in 2020, Prime Minister Sanna Marin and her performance during the corona crisis were evaluated to raise the party's popularity. Also, von Schoultz, Järvi, and Mattila (2020: 164) argue that the example of Antti Rinne (who served as Leader of the Social Democratic Party between 2014 and 2020) shows that party popularity does not necessarily correlate with the party leader's popularity. Nevertheless, party leaders are central figures. Moreover, their personas affect voting decisions, even to the rise of new political parties (Kinnunen, 2020), and in Finland, one of the most popular presidents, Sauli Niinistö, chose to re-run for the presidency as an independent candidate, representing the people (Luukkonen, 2018). Contrary to the suggestions of Reunanen and Kunelius (2021: 43), traditional media and social media are intertwined entities, and are not rivaling for attention. Chadwick (2013) gives a good explanation as to why traditional media and social media should not be entirely separated, and instead should be approached as a hybrid concept, where the platforms complement and fulfill each other. However, this research is focused on social media and specifically on Facebook. Inherently, this topic lineation understands that new and significant forms of political campaigning also take place in traditional media. But by focusing intensely on a less studied platform (i.e. Facebook in the Finnish campaign context), this study necessarily excludes broadcast media and other social media platforms from the analysis. Through social media, the public can voice their opinions, organize into groups, and influence decision-making through advocacy campaigns and mobilization. Online political group participation has been found to correlate with offline political participation (Conroy, Freezell & Guerrero, 2012; Vissers & Stolle, 2014a). However, Facebook has been found to politically mobilize those who are not otherwise active, even though "Facebook participation might be apolitical in nature" (Vissers & Stolle, 2014b). In this research, the participation of political actors and the public is a unique consideration point in the process of the brand construction taking place in the public sphere, and being created and organized under the Facebook pages of political candidates during their campaigns. 8 Acta Wasaensia The political personas in this study are party leaders who have significant exposure because of their position in the party. Notably, the vote-pullers who receive many votes because of their well-established status as politicians, recognition, or other status in the Finnish political field emerge as a second group. The national context of the study comes from the national parliamentary campaign, but the concept of campaigning also applies internationally. Furthermore, Facebook is widely used by political candidates globally, and the issue of parliamentary elections concerns several countries, even if there are some differences in their political systems. However, presenting and selling a political self is universal, as well as the idea of the electorate forming opinions and discussing them in online contexts. While political communication online is carried out in multiple ways, in professional campaigning, a strong position is also taken by staffers who use social media in indirect ways to influence journalists (Kreiss, 2014). Here, the focus is on the communication carried out on the pages of individual politicians and the comments they receive. Kreiss and McGregor (2018a) suggest that online companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google should also be regarded as active political communication agents, because at least in some countries, they collaborate with political communication professionals. However, in their study, Facebook is only considered a platform where political communication takes place and as a tool used for campaigning, even recognizing that its affordances and functioning logic affect the communicative actions and results. But when campaign communication is planned and performed strategically, the platform becomes a tool for the user. Thus, it is not Facebook as a company that is the actor; but rather the user who uses and benefits from its functions. However, the functioning logic defined by the algorithm of Facebook does act for the user specifically (Thorson et al., 2021), which therefore takes part of the control away from them. Scolere, Pruchniewska, and Duffy (2018) introduce the idea of platform-specific self-branding, where the brand construction is considered through the affordances of the platform, the audience, and the producer's self concept. In this study, the affordances of Facebook, in other words, what functions and possibilities it affords the user (Treem & Leonardi, 2013) are applied with the analysis of the personas constructed in the posts and comments. However, my personal view on the audience differs from that of Scolere, Pruchniewska, and Duffy’s (2018), and whereas they view the audience as limited to what the producer expects of their audience, I propose including all public as an actor in this personal brand construction, and that they are also negotiating the persona. Thus, while there is a target demography that the politicians consider, and some of them can be followers of the politician’s page, but in reality there are more users that see a particular post Acta Wasaensia 9 and its comments. Furthermore, Facebook also shows the posts to a broad public which has not explicitly chosen to be exposed to that specific content. Understanding politicians' personal brands and how they are constructed online contributes to both constituents’ and candidates’ better understanding of campaign communication. Simultaneously, candidates' communication agencies and PR actors, as well as political communication professionals and teams, and different platforms' moderators will also benefit from this line of research. The presented study aligns with Green's (1993) suggestion of researchers connecting media users and producers, while also supporting media education sectors by gathering several actors from different corners of political communication. In Finland, this research has been previously discussed through personalization, focusing on individual politicians' increasing role, instead of that of parties (Alho, 2012; Isotalus & Almonkari, 2014; Isotalus, 2017; Karvonen, 2009). It has been argued that the personal figure has become more valued than the party in political communication (González Bengoechea, Fernández Muñoz & García Guardia, 2019; Isotalus & Almonkari, 2012; 2014; Rudd, 2016). Thus it is essential to research the negotiation of personas, and understand the representations of political characters. Political communication is also continuously developing, mainly as technological advancements and societal changes affect communication. As a consequence, new research is required to understand current developments, and to strategically plan for the future. Nyboe and Drotner (2008: 161–176) have called for reframing and remodeling the existing theories on cultural identity and production to better serve and portray the digital world. Raising the critical aspect of social media in self-presentation, van Dijck (2013) argues that it is not a neutral arena for self-performance. Instead, it is a powerful tool for promoting and shaping identities, which is easily forgotten given the ease and natural-seeming affordances Facebook has for it. This underlines the need for an update on our understanding of identity and how it is constructed online through self-representations, by looking at it from the viewpoint of persona studies and the construction of persona (Marshall & Barbour, 2015). This shift to persona and personal brands can be viewed as an appropriate new way to look at identities at a time when individuals are actively and consciously managing their personas, and thus constructing personal brands with specific aims and intentions. With the increasing mediatization and multi- disciplinary contexts of self-representations, this approach is also needed in political communication, even though ‘brands’ are generally discussed in the context of business research. However, their construction still results from communicative acts (Petruc!, 2016), which connects the concept well to marketing communications, and in the context of this research, campaign communication 10 Acta Wasaensia and communications studies. Furthermore, Enli (2015a; 2015b) and van Dijck (2013) have also discussed self-branding as an act of “selling humans as products” in the context of communication studies (see also Preece & Kerrigan, 2015; Kumar, Dhamija & Dhamija, 2016). Previous international research on communication on digital platforms has focused on network analysis (i.e. Maireder & Schlögl, 2014), constructing communities (Zappavigna, 2011), the construction of the politicians' audience relationship (Parmelee & Bichard, 2013), politicians’ authenticity and the presentation of self (Enli, 2015a; 2015b), and strategic campaign communication in the hybrid media environment (Lilleker, Tenscher & "t#tka, 2015). Political campaign communication research has focused on election forecasting (Burnap et al., 2015; McKelvey, DiGrazia & Rojas, 2014) and political mobilization (Carlisle & Patton, 2013; Vissers & Stolle, 2014a, 2014b). Regarding social media use in political communication, the focus has been given to populism and disinformation (Blassnig & Wirz, 2019; Bobba, 2019; Stier et al., 2017), the adoption and application of different social media platforms (Gulati & Williams, 2013; Macafee, McLaughlin & Rodriguez, 2019; Skovsgaard & Van Dalen, 2013), comparison between parties (Larsson, 2017), and the roles of journalism and social media in political communication (Larsson, 2018, 2019; Kalsnes & Larsson, 2019). Campaign communication has also been studied through individual cases in the context of elections, especially the election of Barack Obama in 2012 (Kreiss, 2014; Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015). Also, the Arab Spring and the Internet Research Agency case on Twitter in the election of 2016 have inspired several political communication researchers (Badawy, Ferrara & Lerman, 2018; Linvill et al., 2019; Lukito, 2020). In Finnish political communication research, voting behavior (Mattila et al., 2020), populism (Hatakka, Niemi & Välimäki 2017; Herkman, 2016; 2017; 2019; Niemi, 2012; 2013; 2014a; Palonen, 2020), personalization (Karvonen 2009; Isotalus & Almonkari, 2012; 2014), as well as mediatization and the presentation skills of politicians have been issues of interest for researchers. The politicians' use of social media in Finland has mainly been studied by quantitative analyses focusing on Twitter (Comet, 2014; Strandberg, 2013, 2016; Strandberg & Borg, 2020; Vainikka & Huhtamäki, 2015;). However, recently, there has been some qualitative research on this topic (Laaksonen et al., 2017; Nelimarkka et al., 2020). Larsson (2015a, 2015b) and Nelimarkka et al. (2020) have undertaken Facebook research in the Nordic context by assessing engagement and content in political communication on social media. There is a call for qualitative analysis into the field of self-branding in political campaign communication. There is also a gap in Acta Wasaensia 11 research on Finnish political candidates, the public, and their online interaction during campaigning. 1.2! Methodology and Data This study represents the hermeneutic research interest which is typical in social sciences, arts, and the humanities. Interpretation and the aim to better understand are the key principles guiding the analysis, instead of just describing the phenomenon in hand. In this study, the objective is to understand online campaign communication and interpret how the public and candidates negotiate political personal brands on Facebook during a campaign period. The way the study is conducted also includes an explanatory knowledge interest, with the aim of unveiling valuable characteristics for understanding and executing campaign communication. Generally, a triangulation approach to research that combines qualitative and quantitative research approaches in the research design, supports reaching a holistic view on campaign communication on Facebook. When treated as units of analysis, the extent and variety of the posts and comments in the candidate-citizen communications explored can only be understood through the manual data-based content analysis of a complete dataset. The analysis uses two analysis operationalizations as an inspiration, together with an idea of political persona representation modified from the academic persona representation of Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020). The first operationalization is by Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) for analyzing personalization (see Figure 1.). The second one is used by Nelimarkka et al. (2020) in their content analysis of candidates and constituents in the 2015 election campaign. Recent developments in studying representations of self and identity are combined in the theoretical framework to create a model for studying politicians' brand constructions on Facebook. A significant contribution to this model comes from persona studies and the discussions by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2015; 2020) studying the production, dissemination and the exchange of public identities. All three analysis operationalizations have been modified to suit the data analysis of this study. Together with a more extensive exploration of the theoretical framework, these modifications are explained in detail in section 4.2. 12 Acta Wasaensia Figure 1. The concept of personalization (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012; Isotalus & Almonkari, 2014). Social media data collection has advanced through several joint efforts where different open source code applications have been developed to fetch or scrape data online. One of these applications Facepager is used to collect data in this study, and has been developed to fetch data from, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by web scraping and the use of APIs (Application Programming Interface) (Jünger & Keyling, 2019; Puschmann, 2019; Rogers, 2019). The data consists of a total of 16,175 posts and comments on the selected Finnish candidates’ Facebook pages during one month before the main election day. The 18 candidates chosen for the study were the current parliament party leaders whose public Facebook pages were readily available (with the exception of one party leader without a public page), and the ten biggest vote-pullers in the election of 2019. The candidates are: Li Andersson, Sari Essayah, Pekka Haavisto, Harry “Hjallis” Harkimo, Anna-Maja Henriksson, Laura Huhtasaari, Antti Häkkänen, Elina Lepomäki, Antti Lindtman, Sanna Marin, Kai Mykkänen, Petteri Orpo, Mauri Peltokangas, Antti Rinne, Juha Sipilä, Ville Tavio, Sampo Terho, and Ben Zyskowicz (see Appendix 1.). These individuals were chosen because of their exposure and comparative status as well-known professional politicians who could be expected to attract public discussion and who also have a recognized personal brand on their Facebook page. The diversity of the selected politicians adds a multifaceted and holistic view of Finnish politicians’ persona construction to the overall study. Acta Wasaensia 13 The data and its collection process are further explained in section 4.3. Since the data consists of Finnish politicians’ pages and the Finnish Parliamentary election context, there are context-specific details in the text used when analyzing posts and comments, and these are presented in Chapters 5 and 6. Finnish readers will understand the context differently from non-Finnish readers, however, this is recognized and has been addressed in the analysis. Some specific details and context-specific references are not explained in depth in the study because the study’s focus is more on the functions and performances of Facebook posts, and not the particular details of the Finnish campaign discussions. Also, because of research ethics deliberation explained in section 4.5, the discussion comments are mostly shortened, and citations are presented in their minimal form addressing what is relevant for illustrating the analysis and results. 1.3! Central Concepts Social media as a communication environment is challenging to define (Laaksonen, Matikainen & Tikka, 2013: 11–13). In this research, it is understood through Leonardi, Huysman, and Steinfield’s (2013) definition of enterprise social media, as a platform where social interaction takes place, thus enabling the construction of brands through this interaction. Social media will be defined more precisely in section 2.3 through the platform in question, as the focus is on the functions Facebook provides for the individual user, the content producer, and the audience. Social media’s strength as a campaign tool for politicians is that online, they are not restricted by journalists’ gate-keeping and decision-making, and are able to self-govern their self-representations (Enli, 2015a). While social media is the combination of technology and networks, it is also a combination of platforms and their users, so forming a set of communication channels and tools that organizes work and leisure far differently from what used to be possible before continuous connectivity. But this also has negative connotations which are highlighted in the latest trending ideas on media, with people discussing digi-detox and purposely taking themselves "offline" for a break from social media, for a set amount of time. Online discussion is a concept that is reformed and re-shaped as communication culture evolves. Layouts change, technology develops, new channels are introduced, and they offer new possibilities for how discussions and new contexts for communities form. Subsequently, this changes the type of users, content, and discussions on each platform. (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 7). Online discussion allows for influencing and connecting for those who choose to enter the discussion, and the constituents who write comments, react to posts, and 14 Acta Wasaensia engage in other ways (Robertson, Vatrapu & Medina, 2010). Papacharissi (2015) refers to this as affective publics. Online discussion is also multimodal, so it can include text characters, emojis, links, hashtags, mentions and visual elements (Salonen, Kannasto & Paatelainen, in review). Visual elements, links and tags are also important in online messages, but these are excluded from the scope of this study to focus on what is being shown to the public directly in the text-based message. This focuses the research on content that the public see on their feed without clicking anything open. Consequently, online discussion is here defined as the exchange of text-based messages on a social media platform. Emojis and hashtags are used in the text to explain the tone and used similarly to text in Facebook communication. Accordingly, this limited interpretation of them in the analysis includes them only when they help to explain the text, and give precise cues to purposes such as support, and add meaning to the comments. Thus, if there was only an emoji in the comment, these were excluded from the analysis to avoid possible misinterpretations (see Weissman & Tanner, 2018). A post can be considered as a call for discussion, and the comments as replies. However, on Facebook, the thread of comments and the post does not always form a delineated discussion chain. Therefore Farina's (2019) model of analyzing Facebook posts as comments in a continuous process of calls and replies as text analysis does not apply here, and rather, the approach is to analyze posts and comments as separate negotiations of meaning coming from separate actors in the process which does not necessarily constitute as continuous interaction between the actors. In addition to being individual pieces of text and voiced negotiations of the politician's persona, posts also reflect a premise that comments and reactions are replies to a particular post on Facebook, which then sets their overall context. The candidates aim to reach the electorate with their posts, and the constituents are their target focus because they are the ones who vote. However, online, it is not possible to determine whether all of the discussion participants are eligible to vote. Thus, I will refer to them in this study as the public. The personalization of politics is the increased focus on individual politicians at the expense of parties and topic issues (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012; Isotalus, 2017), and can happen in various forms. With the development of political institutions, individual politicians' roles have changed, and their importance enhanced. The media prefers to present issues and topics preferably through individual politicians, rather than with parties or other collectives, which also translates to the public speaking about the same politicians as representatives for particular topics. For example, the spring 2020 COVID-19 media exposure in Acta Wasaensia 15 Finland was carried out through Prime Minister Marin and her persona, with coverage representing the Prime Minister in photos and statements. This type of increased focus on individuals can significantly influence the electorate’s opinions and choices, and make personality and individual characteristics key considerations, first in voting decisions, and then in decision-making and political power structures (Karvonen, 2009: 95). Ultimately, people vote for politicians to represent the public. Therefore the role is also related to how they are seen as people in their private life, such as their personal characteristics, family and leisure-time, and not just their level of professional or political expertise. This also creates interest towards politicians and their representations, and part of their appeal and credibility comes from who they actually are and which values they represent. In this context, it is challenging to define what is ‘private’ to a person who needs to reveal aspects of their private life to show who they are and what they represent. Traditional political communication research has focused on ‘image’ as the term used to refer to the public perception of individual politicians or parties (Isotalus, 2017: 122). Figure 2 presents how the concepts of image, identity, online identity, persona, and personal brand overlap and affect each other in a continuous process. In this study, image is understood as the interpretation that an individual makes of a representation of self, and what they hear from the outside. This interpretation affects how an individual negotiates the person forward, affecting a person's personal brand. The personal brand of a politician relates to the idea of selling values and attitudes, giving promises, and demarcating oneself from other representatives as a tool in political campaigns (Kaputa, 2012). A personal brand results from the production process where a personal brand is constructed through identity (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2015). Moreover, it is about the "sellable self" and generating value compared to others in the field (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 225), and describes how the person distinguishes themselves from others and how they want to be seen. However, it is also affected by how others want the person to be seen. In this study (and reflecting previous work: Kannasto, 2020), the aspects of the public as active actors and the interaction between the actors in the process of personal brand construction has been addressed. In this way, personal brand results from an acknowledged collective production process, where the self is turned into a representation to be sold to the public. From the individual's production process side, this phenomenon has also been called profile-work in social psychology (Silfverberg, Liikkanen & Lampinen, 2011) and personal branding (Petruc!, 2016) in relation to social media services. On the other hand, image is also the result of what others believe and perceive from what is told to them about a person, and an interpretation of the personal brand. Later, this image can be communicated again, for example in Facebook comments, which can 16 Acta Wasaensia be seen as a ‘brand construction by others’ rather than by the individual themselves. Figure 2. Flow and effects of personal brand and image online The idea of an acknowledged production process is central to a personal brand, which is especially interesting because for politicians, the division between the private and professional self is blurred due to the public nature of their role (Street, 2004). Political personal brand identity is dependent and built through an emotional connection between the politician and the constituent, at the same time fostering the relationship between the actors (Farhan & Omar, 2021). Because of its human aspect, the brand identity cannot be categorized as strictly as with e.g. the brand identity linked to products (Marshall & Henderson, 2016). However, this human aspect is also a partly coincidental creation, rather than being purely the result of an acknowledged process. Regardless of the long existence of influential figures and discussions of political topics through particular politicians, the concepts of personal brand and persona are relatively new in academic research, particularly in political communication and especially in the Finnish context. Thus, in this study, I develop also these concepts by drawing from different academic disciplines. The discussion of the personal brands of politicians and their construction intersects several fields. Political communication sets the overall frame for it, and campaign communication connects the topic with marketing. The conceptualization of personal brands also touches the fields of social psychology (Uski, 2015) and persona studies which reflects a growing research interest rising from celebrity studies (Marshall, 2014; Marshall & Barbour, 2015). Historically, the context of !"#$%&%' (#)*+$, !"#$%$&'#(")#$)*( +*,-")' !"#$%$&$')-.( !*,-")'#( /,')0 !"#$% !"#$%&% $#'#()" *)++$"#,-. /0$$#, 12'%$, 3$'4#()", &'()'%*!+%',),- !"#$"%& '%()*"+ Acta Wasaensia 17 persona representations has been broadcast media, where the publishing process differs from the user-based model discussed in this study. Isotalus and Almonkari (2014) have studied politicians’ personalization in Finland in conventional media using the operationalization provided by Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) (Figure 1). They identify two distinct categories of the ‘popular charmer politician’ and the ‘topic politician’ (a literal translation from the original Finnish is the "matter of fact" politician) that describe Finnish politicians and their media representations (Isotalus & Almonkari, 2011; Isotalus, 2017: 73). They concluded that Finnish politicians do not have media strategies, nor do they focus on image building. This study elaborates on their ideas in the social media context, specifically on Facebook, and adds the concept of political personal brand construction into the discussion. Finnish researchers emphasize the hybrid media environment (Chadwick, 2013), understanding the technical side with algorithms, and also that the emotionally orientated political communication style fitted for social media requires a new kind of expertise (Knuutila & Laaksonen, 2020). Thus, more research is needed in the Finnish election campaign context in order to better understand how political personal brands are constructed, how they become successful, and what disturbs their strategic construction in this environment. This is especially vital for developing and interpreting professional campaign communications. Here, the idea of the personalization of politics is elaborated with a marketing-orientated approach where strategic brand construction is considered as a further application of personalization, and studied in the context of political communication (Karvonen, 2009; Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). This focus on personal brands in politics is furthermore an example of persona politics; a form of politics where personal characteristics and attributes are included in campaigning (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 232, 240, 256). With their centrality in business and marketing, the importance of brands has also been recognized in political communication. However, the limited amount of studies on political brands have mainly been focused on political parties or party leaders (Lilleker, 2015; Scammel, 2015; Speed, Butler & Collins, 2015). Brands are constructed through communication and communicative acts. Personal brands are not only about the qualities of a person, but also about how those qualities are packaged (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005). In this study, the chosen focus is on brands in campaign communication which relates to marketing communication and political marketing, specifically political branding. Therefore, while the focus is grounded in the field of communication studies, it also intersects with the marketing dimension from a business studies perspective. Mackey (2016), on the other hand, suggests that studying personas applies to the field of public relations 18 Acta Wasaensia with an application of strategic forms of communication. The approach to persona as a representation and production process places this study firmly in the field of persona studies, while also further developing it. Specifically, it aligns with Mackey’s approach by moving from identity to personas and brands as strategic constructs. Furthermore, the analysis enables the testing of the ideas of Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 213) as they call for a new network of researchers to join the development of the multidisciplinary field of persona studies. 1.4! Structure of the Study As a continuation of the brief introduction to the Finnish political system, the context of elections and the politician's role in Finland, Chapter 2 discusses Finnish campaign history in more detail and presents online discussions relating to political participation. After this, I describe the forums and content used for campaign communication, and explain the importance of target demographics for a strategic approach to campaigns. After introducing how users, platforms, and online discussions connect to my study, I turn to Facebook in detail and elaborate its functions for politicians and present how public pages work. The concepts of identity, persona, and political personal brands are further defined in Chapter 3, where the Facebook affordances for personal branding are also described. This section underlines the relationships between these key concepts relating to politicians and their personas, and explains my approach to politicians' personal brands and their construction in this study. The methodology and data are explained in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is the analysis chapter for the posts, analyzing the politicians as actors. The public are approached as actors within the personal brand construction process in Chapter 6, where the findings relating to their acts, comments, and their engagement with the politicians' posts are presented. The results are presented in Chapter 7, and in the concluding Chapter 8, I return to the presumptions where I start this study from. Four interlinked presumptions form the starting point for this study, which are connected with the restructuring of campaign communication as required by the increasing importance of social media platforms and their affordances, and the subsequently evolving relationship between candidates and their electorate. The first presumption is related to the role of social media in Finnish campaign communication. Regarding the history of Finnish campaigns, Railo et al. (2016) distinguish four theme periods of election years since the rebuilding period, i.e. the post-war period (further elaborated in section 2.1.1.). These are the period of party power 1945–1958 (Railo, 2016: 25–91), the period leading towards professional Acta Wasaensia 19 campaigning 1962–1975 (Pitkänen, 2016: 92–154), the years of liberation 1979– 1999 (Niemi, 2016: 155–224), and the period of online and financial power 2003– 2015 (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 225–314). Of particular relevance to this study, Railo et al. (2016) note that the internet has caused an upheaval for campaign possibilities, and in this study, I argue that social media is the true and more significant catalyst in changing the campaign game in regard to how it stands and how campaigning can be conducted. The second presumption is that the affordances of Facebook both offer and require the production of more personal content. These affordances are outlined in section 3.3.2. In my study context, Facebook allows politicians to better connect with constituents through more authentic, interactive, and personal representations of self. This promotes a construction of more rounded personal brands that represent private and even intimate personas. It is argued that politics is personal, and as a result, constituents engage more fully with politicians, negotiating more dimensions of their persona, and connecting with its more private and intimate aspects. These representations of self are outlined in Chapter 3, starting from identity, which forms the basis for public representations of self. The third presumption is that the public are active actors in the process of the personal brand construction of a politician when they participate in online discussions (Kannasto, 2020). This large audience – the actively participating and decision forming public – also expects interaction, thus paving the way for more strategic campaign communication in social media. Online, these discussions are public and remain archived, which gives them more exposure than a publicly voiced statement would normally receive. This is linked with the first presumption of social media being a catalyst for change, and can stimulate the beginning of a participatory period in campaign communication, where the public is seen to be more active than ever before. On Facebook, the participating public in Finland mainly focuses on personal attributes, such as character, outlook, age and gender, and past roles in politics and other professional life when negotiating their perceptions of political candidates. An analysis of the public as actors in the process via their comments on Facebook is provided in Chapter 6. The fourth and last presumption is that strategic personal brand construction is a process that needs to be strategically managed for Finnish politicians in social media. Finnish politicians vary in their construction of personal brands, not so much in relation to their parties, but more so in relation to their identities and personal preferences. Their private life is mainly discussed in public only if the specific issues are public due to, e.g. a previous public career in business or sports. However, some politicians reveal more dimensions, thus offering a more diverse 20 Acta Wasaensia persona. This appeals to people both positively and negatively, and while it connects and engages on one hand, it also adds criticism which is often more personal than political on the other. The analysis of how politicians construct their brands is presented in Chapter 5. Especially, the way they approach Facebook can show whether they utilize its affordances and succeed in their Facebook campaign communication by inviting followers and promoting engagement. Acta Wasaensia 21 2! SOCIAL MEDIA IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS This chapter presents the changes brought about by social media and platformed interaction in political and campaign communication in Finland. The main context of the data is social media as a campaign communication platform, and is outlined in sections 2.1. and 2.2., discussing how online discussion can and has affected the way political communication is carried out and what candidates need to consider when communicating with the public online. During this discussion, it needs to be noted that I am not stating that social media would have replaced traditional means of campaigning or broadcast media as a source of campaign information. But rather, it has become ‘the significant other’ in political communication, an arena open to those unable or unwilling to leave their homes, those seeking broad real-time audiences, and those familiar with the affordances of social media. Facebook and the principles of politicians' profile pages on Facebook are presented in section 2.4, and guide the understanding of how politicians utilize Facebook to communicate and as a tool in their campaigns. Social media and its development have been characterized as Web 2.0. Also, generations have been named as generation X, Y, Z, and A referring to whether they have been born in the age of social media, or have lived while it has been developing. Since social media became an everyday tool for leisure, education and work, it rapidly came to provide platforms and tools for those who wanted to discuss, influence, gain power, and spread or fight propaganda. At its core are user- generated content, service-specific profiles, and social networks enabled by different types of technology such as mobile phones, tablets, and wireless networks. The divergent platform affordances dependent on their functioning logic and structure offer possibilities that have not been available before. For example, social media platforms offer inexpensive, direct and global real-time communication with the public, compared to television or radio time, or printed advertising that always has a limited audience and is more capital-intensive. Social media also allows multi-type content to be produced and distributed across platforms, and this can be challenging to the personal brands of politicians. What used to be a moustache drawn to a campaign poster and seen by few until it was taken down, can now be a viral hate campaign with national or even global exposure, and which always leaves traces online. The internet allows for political communication without mass media, and can mitigate the effects that the availability of economic resources can have in campaigning. According to Sey and Castells (2004: 375), political communication changes online: messages are simplified, images are used, politics becomes personalized, and storytelling and character assassination, which is the attempt to 22 Acta Wasaensia harm someone's reputation or credibility (Samoilenko & Mason, 2021) become central tools in the promotion or demotion of political candidates. These elements become even more true with social media, where a commitment to political opinions can be shown more publicly. However, they do not come for free, as content production, strategic planning, and more extensive exposure on social media require resources, and time, skills and money are needed to produce compelling social media campaigns and interact with the public online. Thus, the dynamic real-time elements and wide publicity of social media require more from politicians and parties than earlier online forms of communication with more static web pages and personal blogs. For those politicians who are willing and able to exploit the communication possibilities offered by different platforms, active content production and interaction with the public can add to the exposure of political ideas, and offer a more personal approach with the public. The role of the internet in campaigning has been claimed as being central by the Finnish political parties as early as 2007. However, according to Strandberg (2009: 60–63), at that time, that role was up for debate, and his suggestion for candidates to start considering how they can benefit from using Facebook, Myspace, IRC-gallery, or YouTube which were widely used by young people (Strandberg, 2009: 84), has now partly become a reality. Some of the applications he mentioned have since been forgotten, while others have become more important. However, the ideas and argument for using social media in campaigns are stronger than ever. For example, in 2019, Facebook is still largely being used by all age groups, even though its use is declining among younger people (Pönkä, 2019). But globally, in May 2020, there were 3.81 billion active social media users, with Facebook being the most popular social media platform based on an audience of 2,498 million users (Statista, 2020). In Finland, social media and internet utilization rates have increased and rapidly transformed since 2003. Strandberg (2016: 103–106) and Strandberg and Borg (2020: 112–116) also report an increase in citizen's use of social media for election news, and also the use of candidate selection engines between 2007 and 2019. The significance of age is also relative to the candidate’s age and their social media usage. However, with citizens, the most active groups are those between 18-34 years old, with 42 % of them actively using social media and the internet for following campaign communications. Those most interested in politics are also the most active user group, with 41% following online campaign communications. Perhaps surprisingly, socio-economic factors have not been shown to have a significant difference on the social media and internet utilization rates related to following campaign communications. Those living in cities tended to use social media and the internet for following campaigns more than those living in rural Acta Wasaensia 23 areas. However, even though the overall percentages increase, in 2019 they still account for less than half of the sample among the citizens, so following campaign communications online still remains relatively low in terms of numbers (Ibid.). Studies show that candidates use different social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook for very different purposes (Jungherr, 2016; Stier et al., 2018), depending on the expected audience and the tools each platform provides (Zhao, Lampe & Ellison, 2016). Furthermore, they each have unique channels and ways to appeal to the public. The increased use of social media has been suggested to add to the success of non-professional politicians, whose communications in several cases are not strategic nor even politically correct (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2014; Enli, 2017). At first, this was seen as a young politicians' unique opportunity. However, there have been various candidates in Finland who, together with their campaign communication offices, have been successful in using social media for campaigning. While Twitter and blogs had a significant role in the elections of 2012, the significant use of Facebook also shows in the numbers of active users and politicians available, with almost 90% of candidates having a Facebook presence already in 2011 (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 304) and continuing into the 2019 elections (Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 109). Different platforms are used for different types of discussion, and in the elections of 2015, the candidates used Twitter for presenting and seeking opinions, while Facebook was used strictly for campaigning purposes such as updating information on the campaign-trail, showing support, and praising candidates (Nelimarkka et al., 2020). Van Santen and van Zoonen (2010) claim that candidates use social media to communicate directly with constituents, but Kim and Chen (2016) focus on its participatory nature in advancing democracy. In this regard, online media can promote democracy by providing public forums for political debate and discussion, thus opening up what could be characterized as an additional public sphere (Habermas, 1989). Some other studies argue that instead of communicating with constituents, social media has been mainly used for communicating to them (Graham et al., 2013; Farkas & Schwartz, 2018). Before social media, Alho (2004) regarded democracy as silent, with information flowing but no real communication between political actors occurring. However, social media may have finally opened that communication with more possibilities for public interaction and more visible and open decision-making, and Coleman (2020) suggests that media ecology should be utilized to the fullest to encourage ongoing and stable discussion between politicians, the electorate, decision-making institutions, and their stakeholders. The relevant question here is whether social media is used by politicians to communicate with or to the public. 24 Acta Wasaensia Fundamentally, politics is about negotiating common meanings and signifiers through communication (Weber, 1949). Political communication is a dynamic process of political public spheres, political actors, the public and the media, where the focus is on the interaction and communication flow. While most research on political communication utilizes quantitative methods exploring campaigning (Larsson, 2016), participation (Back, Teorell & Westholm, 2011; Boulianne, 2015; Kim & Chen, 2016; Quintelier & Hooghe, 2011), interaction (Sørensen, 2016; Valera-Ordaz & Sørensen, 2019), proving polarization (Iyengar, 2015), or the existence of an echo chamber (Karlsen et al., 2017), they all have in common a call for qualitative research on political discussion. So far, there have been only a few attempts to address this, and they are mostly focused on Twitter (i.e. Broersma & Graham, 2012; Goldbeck, Grimes & Rogers, 2010), partly because data collection has been less challenging with its more open API (Puschmann, 2019; Rieder & Röhle, 2017), and possibly because of the easier comparison and treatment of tweets as units in data. Larsson (2015a, 2015b) and Karlsen and Enjolras (2016) have contributed to the context of Nordic social media research by studying the use of different platforms and their constituent responses in campaigning. Larsson's research on Norwegian party leaders on Facebook shows likes as the most common type of engagement, and suggests further exploration of the viral functions of Facebook in election communication. His further research on Swedish politicians shows that larger parties receive considerably more attention on social media, even though they are not the most enthusiastic in producing content. Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013) have also recognized Facebook as the largest and most relevant platform for research on strategic social media use by political parties in Denmark, supporting the choice of platform for this study. Political Facebook interaction has also been studied by Valera-Ordaz and Sørensen (2019), who have analyzed the Facebook interactions of Danish and Spanish members of European Parliament (MEP) during a non-campaign period and found that while they are active, they get less engagement than national politicians. They also conclude that the Danish MEPs use Facebook for interaction, while their Spanish colleagues avoid discussion. Bruns and Highfield (2013) and Enli and Skogerbø (2013) also found more engagement for individual politicians and their content on social media compared to parties or organizations. However, in the Nordic context, there is a gap in the research related to Finnish politicians and their activity in social media. Acta Wasaensia 25 2.1! Political Communication and Politicians in Finland Regardless of the public nature of their roles, Finnish politicians mostly refuse to be treated like celebrities (Isotalus & Almonkari, 2012), and they can be met in local markets and parks without guards or any special treatment. In Finland, political scandals and private life reporting have mostly been viewed as irrelevant and an invasion of privacy. Work and private life have been separated among the majority of the public. Women's magazines started to conduct more personal interviews revealing politicians' personal lives in the 1970s (Railo, 2011: 31), but the control over what was exposed was more in the politicians' hands. However, the public exposure of the scandals of Finnish politicians and their private life has been seen to increase after 2000. Some examples of the public scrutiny of politicians’ private lives include the discussion of the love lives of former Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, former Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva, and former Cultural Minister Tanja Karpela (Herkman, 2011: 11–12, 104; Isotalus, 1917: 96– 101; Karvonen, 2008), or on matters such as Parliamentary Representative Harry Harkimo losing their driver's license (Viljanen, 2020). But this kind of flow of information and the blurring of the distinction between private and public is also typical for social media, where profiles are personal, so the content is also expected to address similar issues. Finnish party leaders have stated that media has the most significant role in defining and constructing their identities (Isotalus & Almonkari, 2014). Nevertheless, candidates and parties make their own choices on where to focus their exposure and communication, especially in social media. As new applications and trends develop, new platforms are adopted for use in political communication. Herkman (2011: 49) suggests that political scandals and their more open exposure in traditional media show that media actively fills its role as a watchdog. But while the Finnish public trust of mainstream media is relatively high, their trust of social media is lower, regardless of its frequent use (Matikainen et al., 2020: 12, 17–28). For example, Matikainen et al. (2020, 26) report that over 60% of respondents in their study regard Facebook as a quite or very unreliable source of news. However, Facebook is important for interaction, and the Finnish public has been seen to show their disappointment in politics in online discussions using harsh words and angry or even hate speech (Haasio et al., 2018). This role of the public as the possible new watchdog is further examined in section 2.2.1. The focus on individuals in the Finnish parliamentary election is also highlighted in the fact that while members of their party and having the party office's support, candidates usually work with personal support groups (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 293–294). In these groups, they have close, committed and intensely hard working 26 Acta Wasaensia assistants such as those working directly with the candidate's social media, or a looser group of participants who might either donate money or participate in individual campaign events. Some of the latter group may also do social media mobilization work through their personal accounts and profiles, for example, by writing about the campaign, or purposefully trying to hurt the opponent’s reputation. The often vaunted non-corrupt ideal of the Finnish society and the perceived image of a functioning system has been challenged through election financing scandals, police force corruption, research on cronyism, and problems with service acquisitions (Hämäläinen, 2019; Salminen & Mäntysalo, 2013; Sundman, 2020; Toivonen, 2015). These types of challenges have at their strongest destroyed political careers, and even if they have not gone that far, they are still visible in online discussions. Officially, Finland's corruption level has statistically been minimal, but closer consideration has found implications of strong structural corruption that effectively escapes the notice of the public eye (Salminen & Mäntysalo, 2013). In social media, regardless of suggested problems arising from filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011), polarization (Harel, Jameson & Maoz, 2020; Iyengar, 2015), and hate speech (Haasio et al., 2018), communication possibilities and access to societal discussion becomes easier by the day as internet access has become a basic necessity, therefore taken for granted in most Western societies. However, even if the Western world fluently describes and lives in a hybrid media environment and memes on wireless internet connection as now controlling the bottom line of Maslow's (1943) hierarchy of needs can be considered accurate, then access is not self-evident in all countries and regions. For example, China limits social media access, for example to YouTube and Facebook. In some African countries, social media is limited by requiring users to purchase daily access passes. Together with the further possibility of a complete lack of access, these types of legislation widen the gap of these societies to those considered as hybrid media environments, usually dividing the so-called first and third-world countries even more drastically (Pitcan, Marwick & boyd, 2018; Van Deursen & van Dijck, 2013; 2019). In the context of this research, in the online Finnish parliamentary election campaign communication in spring 2019, there are no challenges of access to communication. It also took place with no significant limitations to the freedom of speech, even if some parties practice some degree of self-moderation on their own and their candidates' social media channels. However, the limitations arising from the lack of electronic voting possibilities may in the future affect access to voting, for example, in situations such as the corona pandemic. In Finnish society, Acta Wasaensia 27 inhabitants mostly have online access at home, and public spaces also provide access to the technology required for online communication. Additionally, the legislated right to express one’s own opinion and ideas is only limited when it violates someone else's immunity, for example, through defamation of character (Penal Code For Finland 531/2000). Thus, in Finland, the public are allowed and even encouraged to participate in societal discussions and decision-making. Election campaign contexts and communication styles are sensitive to their environments, and vary from one country to another even if the political systems show similar functions (see also Humprecht, Hellmueller & Lischka, 2020). The research on Finnish online political communication has been mostly approached from a political sciences perspective, but research is scarce when it comes to campaign communications. The studies related to campaigns in Finland tend to discuss the costs, voting choice, and publicity or exposure in the campaigns (Railo et al., 2016), populism (Niemi, 2013), and emotional content (Knuutila & Laaksonen, 2020) and lack the online communication approach to campaigning and the persona studies perspective. The history of Finnish election campaigns and their characteristics is explained next, to illustrate the context of Finnish campaign communication. 2.1.1! Finnish election campaigns The particularities of Finnish parliamentary election campaigns have been most thoroughly outlined in the research project of Railo et al. (2016). Particularly, their book is used as the main source for contextualizing the history of Finnish campaign communication to show what, if anything, has changed in Finnish political campaigning when the focus is placed on social media. Coincidentally, the campaign communication of 2019 which forms the data for this study covers the first election starting from where their research period ends. The Finnish parliamentary election voting percentage has ranged from 68.3 to 85.1% during 1945–2011 (Herkman, 2011: 50–51 ). Lately, it has been around 70%, and in 2019 the percentage was 72.84%. Four parties finished the election night vote count close to each other, with all of them finishing with less than 20% of the votes. The Finnish National Election Studies (FNES) concludes that in 2019, 24% of the interviewees were following the campaigning on social media either actively or very actively (Isotalo et al., 2019). Strandberg and Borg’s (2020: 112) survey analysis concludes the public following elections on social media reached 26%. These studies therefore indicate the growing relevance of social media as a source and channel of campaign communication. 28 Acta Wasaensia Regarding the Finnish campaign history, Railo et al. (2016) distinguish four theme periods of election years since the post-war rebuilding period. These are the period of party power 1945–1958 (Railo, 2016: 25–91), the period leading to professional campaigning 1962–1975 (Pitkänen, 2016: 92–154), the years of liberation 1979– 1999 (Niemi, 2016: 155–224), and the period of online and financial power 2003– 2015 (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 225–314). But with the stabilized position of social media in campaign communication, the public have also entered as communicative actors in the game (Kannasto, 2020), which leads me to suggest that a new theme period could manifest itself as ‘the participatory period’. During the period of party power between 1945–1958, the party organizations were weak but developing (Railo, 2016: 27–29). Candidates and parties were at an amateur level, and campaigns were mainly conducted on a local level. The class society reflected heavily on campaigning, and parties mobilized their own classes. The professionalization of campaigns started in the period between 1962–1975 (Pitkänen, 2016: 92–154). The strong party divisions eased off, and voters started to move between parties with their votes. As a result, parties needed to start targeting voter groups more carefully and find new means to reach the electorate. The personalization of campaigns added costs and also a level of competition between individual candidates, and the introduction of television offered increased media possibilities for campaigns. During the years of liberation in 1979–1999, new parties were founded, women stepped up more frequently to take up political positions and roles, and media became more significant as the watchdog of power through new media companies and channels (Niemi, 2016: 155–224). The recession of the 1990s greatly affected campaigning and political messages, and the competition for power showed in the increased competition for exposure and the attention of both media and the constituents. This attention seeking led to more colorful campaigning, where humor and other methods were used to appeal to the electorate. Also, the campaigns turned to become more professional and strategic, and the focus of the elections turned more towards party leaders through the idea of the prime minister elections. In broadcast media, the traditional division in the representations of men in societal topics and women in private life topics has remained stable (Railo, 2011: 253). This comes through especially in how joining personal life with a political career is presented in the media for the two gender roles. Mäkelä’s (2018) interview study of female political leaders concludes similar results, and their media representations are often connected to personal characteristics such as behavior, presentation, appearance and clothing, in addition to combining family Acta Wasaensia 29 and work life. This is often done at the expense of topic issues, and Railo (2011: 131–133) also notes the change that more intimate content has been published since 1990 in politicians’ interviews. Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 226–231) consider the period of online and financial power between 2003–2015 as having challenged the parties in Finland to find ways to distinguish and separate themselves from other parties. Before social media, web sites were a significant outlet for election campaigns. Cornfield (2004: 23) finds websites problematic because the electorate needs to specifically find them and then go to them. By 2000, candidates and their offices also needed to know how to manage their online campaigning while meeting the electorate and producing traditional campaign material (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 303–308). After 2010, social media managers became valuable members of campaign teams, and campaign events were reported and posted on social media, together with the added possibilities of live broadcasts and videos on social media. All of these were used in the campaigns of 2015. For the new millennium, Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 230, 276–278) observed three significant phenomena that have affected campaigning; the breakthrough of the internet, increased campaign costs, and the more pronounced entertainment- orientation of media exposure. In the election of 2015, the average campaign cost for parliamentary representatives was 38,400 euros, and 8,000 euros for other candidates (Ibid. 286). A law was introduced in 2000 requiring the candidates to announce their campaign funds and donors, but some candidates refrained from reporting their funding because there were no sanctions (Ibid. 276–277). But this escalated into a scandal over campaign funding, and its media exposure led to so far the largest political scandal in Finland. However, in 2009 a new law on reporting campaign funds caused the use of donations in campaigns to experience a temporary decrease. Strandberg and Carlson (2020: 78) report an increase in the digital mode of Finnish campaigns since the mid-2000’s. Also, the increased private content on media about the candidates reached its culmination point in the new millennium, manifesting as the ‘personalization of politics’ in Finnish political communication. The added dimension of scandal publicity is one example of the entertainment orientation of politics, and since 2000, all types of media have published stories related to politicians that would previously have been regarded as tabloid material (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 230–238). Karvonen (2008) refers to this as popular culture taking over in journalism, and politicians are more often represented as celebrities instead of through their professional work. However, regardless of the added private nature of content on politicians in broadcast media, the exposure of 30 Acta Wasaensia typical political topics and news is still vivid. Yet so far, no comparative research has been conducted whether the two phenomena of the increased digital mode of campaigning and increased private media content correlate or are separate from each other. The elections of 2007 have been termed as “the image elections” in Finnish election research (Pernaa, Niemi & Pitkänen, 2007; Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 242, 250). Alongside topics and issues, the candidate’s appearance, looks and immediate circles became significant. Television debates were central in this, but the candidates’ personal blogs were also seen as a contributing factor. Notably, campaigns were built strongly leaning towards the party leaders and their personal appeal. Individual online work was also highly visible, and 95 % of the candidates had their own personal campaign website. The next elections in 2011 provided a focus point for populism researchers because the True Finns led by Timo Soini gained a significant increase in votes, despite their largely negative exposure, small party size, and lack of campaign resources (Palonen & Saresma, 2017; Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 269–270; Strandberg & Carlson, 2020: 69). Niemi (2012) and Ylä-Anttila (2020) argue for social media and the internet as being one factor that explains the success of the True Finns, which in August 2011 declared their English party name as The Finns Party. Notably, their support has been built through social media, where they have a visible base of followers who communicate in different platforms. Other parties in Finland started to recognize the importance of social media, and to subsequently train their candidates for it. For example, in 2011 the Center Party guided its candidates on social media (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 305), and they were told that in addition to discussion, contact and networking it is vital for the candidates to present themselves on social media so that the candidate can be recommended both as a good candidate and also as a person. In the same year, Facebook became widely used among the candidates (Strandberg & Carlson, 2020: 78–79), and its use has now stabilized close to 90%. During the election of 2015, most parties used social media. The use of Facebook by the Finns Party differed from the main parties of the Center Party, National Coalition Party, and the Social Democratic Party (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 306– 307). Especially, they often shared more content on topic issues outside of the main topics presented in broadcast media. They also encouraged the public to participate in discussion and share more entertaining content. For example, immigration was present as a topic in every fourth post on their page. They also had triple the number of followers and seven-fold engagement figures compared to the other main parties. It could be that the traditional parties may have had a Acta Wasaensia 31 hard time adjusting to new channels and tools, and the main parties used similar or identical content in both broadcast and social media. This suggests that the Finns Party was more successful in their content creation by being willing to break away from strict communication styles, or maybe not having such a strategic communication approach in the first place. However, this seems to have worked for them, and a similar approach has been reported for the election of 2019, where the Finns Party continued to highlight immigration issues and the threats associated with them (Knuutila & Laaksonen, 2020). In the elections of 2015, over 10% of all candidates were using several social media channels for their campaign communication (Strandberg, 2016: 103–112), and 93% were using social media actively during their campaigning. Party wise, there was a significant difference in the active use of social media by candidates between different parties, varying from the big parties (81%), middle-sized parties (63%), and small parties (17 %). The age was only significant after moving to candidates of ages over 55 and then later to candidates over 39 years. The most active group were candidates between 35 and 44, with 72% being active on social media and the internet during the campaign. In general, female candidates have been more active campaigners on social media, with 65% activity on social media and the internet compared to male candidates at 54%. Those candidates who were already representatives in the parliament were more likely to be active on social media and the internet during the campaign. This could be because as parliamentary representatives, they have more resources for communication, and also because of the party guidance regarding social media communication that has been described earlier (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 305–308). In general, they have the technology, profiles and platforms for communication, and with their role, they get used to interacting with the public through social media and are therefore more familiar with the platforms for their next campaign. Today, money is increasingly used in campaigns on market research, campaign planning consultants, and training the candidates. The use of communication platforms like radio, television and now, online media, have raised campaign costs significantly, and there are no set limits in the campaign budgets for the parliamentary elections, even though the need for them has been a subject of ongoing discussion (The Act on Candidate’s Election Funding 273/2009). However, the candidates must declare their campaign budget and support, whether direct money or items, when they are elected. Each source of support and its donor must be listed if they are worth more than 1500 euros, and an individual candidate or support group for the candidate can only accept a maximum of 6000 euros worth of support from an individual supporter. Regarding foreign sources, 32 Acta Wasaensia only individuals can donate support for candidates in addition to communities or foundations representing like-minded ideals. Social media was first regarded as a less resource demanding campaign platform, yet it has not replaced the more expensive media adds, nor has it proved to be less cost-intensive. Instead it has occupied a parallel market spot where strategic communication also requires financial resources. So far in 2021, the regulation of social media campaign communication has not been introduced in Finland. Also, more general rules for political social media advertising tend to vary between platforms and countries. As examples, in November 2020, Twitter and Facebook banned all political advertising on their platforms (Facebook, 2021; Haukka, 2019; Twitter, 2021), and Facebook also added specific social issues in its ban in the United States. In its application in Finland, some pages that were dedicated to societal themes were subsequently removed from the platform (Parkkinen, 2021). Now in Finland, political advertising and communication on Facebook are only allowed through public pages, and accounts need to apply for permission to conduct it. Through interviews of 20 parliamentary members and party secretaries, Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 289–293) concluded that from the candidates’ perspective, personal meetings with the electorate during a campaign trail are the most prominent campaign tool. The most effective way to influence the electorate is by personal encounters and through advertisements that the public are exposed to during their normal day. This type of personal attachment and inclusion into everyday life can take place when the electorate views an appealing message on their newsfeed in a social media platform. Elements of surprise, visual design and focus, fun, and presence have all been part of successful campaigns in the new millennium. Furthermore, slogans are not seen only as a tool relevant for parties, and some Finnish candidates have branded themselves through slogans that are remembered for years after the campaign. Thus, while candidates need new and innovative means of campaigning, these can only benefit them when they also understand how to utilize the platforms strategically. In the parliamentary elections of 2019, the political environment faced the challenges of solving budget cuts, environmental and social healthcare policies, an exceptionally busy election spring that coincided with European parliamentary elections, health problems among leading politicians, and the current season’s party changes within the government. The government working in the parliamentary season 2015–2019 had to manage a budget deficit, and several budget cuts evoked criticism. The same season saw turmoil within the political parties. For example, a popular vote-puller candidate Hjallis Harkimo, a Acta Wasaensia 33 parliamentary member for the National Coalition Party, decided to start a new political movement called Movement Now, thus leaving his old party. Also, The Finns Party split into two groups, with Minister Sampo Terho starting to lead the Blue Reform group. This resulted in Finland having a government where a minister and some parliamentary representatives in fact represented a party that had not received any votes in the previous election. In the Finnish media coverage on political actors, the concepts of intimacy and publicity were first analyzed in tabloids between 1961-1975 (Saarenmaa, 2010). Railo's (2011) work contributed to the topic of persona representations by looking at the gender representations of politicians in Anna magazine 1975–2005. Research on Finnish media representations has later been applied in regard to populism, gender representations, and female party leadership (Hatakka, Niemi & Välimäki, 2017; Maasilta, 2012; Mäkelä, 2018; Niemi, 2012; 2013; 2014a; 2014b; 2015; Niemi & Noppari, 2017; Niemi, Ruostetsaari & Rautio, 2017). Isotalus (2017) has studied the presentation skills and representations of politicians in media. Alho (2004) has discussed the idea of the public sphere raised by Habermas (1989) in Finnish politics concerning the decision-making processes of politicians, and regards mediatization as a fracturing process for the exercise of power. According to her, the political elite is not participating in the public sphere, thus leaving the rest capable of modifying the political agenda. However, these studies all focus on broadcast media, leaving a research gap to look at politicians and their representations online, resulting from both the participating political candidates and the public as producers of the personal brands of politicians. Supporting this approach, the increased importance and influence of social media for political communication (Bruns et al., 2015; Mattila et al., 2020) highlights the need for this type of research. 2.1.2! Politician as a professional role Defining a politician as having a professional role is more difficult than professions where a certain education or meeting particular standards are required, for example as required for a doctor or a lawyer. However, politicians often have a specific knowledge background through their career which lends them credibility on issues which they set as their main agenda or some part of it. In comparison, athletes become referred as professionals when they are able to generate income through their role as an athlete (Finstad & Isotalus, 2005; Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 180–181, 185), and a similar view on professional politicians is used in this study. Politicians are elected representatives, and the level of politics defines the official requirements for their candidate eligibility and getting elected. 34 Acta Wasaensia For example, city council level politicians rarely do only that role because city council work does not qualify as work in terms of pay and the required time effort. Also, their work does not necessarily result in national level consequences. Therefore, in Finland it is usually only those politicians serving on a national level or in the district offices as party officials that would meet the requirement of a full- time politician used in this study. This is based on the so-called institutional definition for a politician (Finstad & Isotalus, 2005), yet politics is about taking care of common things, and personal or private aspects of taking on the work is something for an individual themself to manage (Railo, 2011: 29). Politics is a collaborative action where aims are set and achieved through influence. When politicians address the public, they need to appeal to them on a symbolic, psychological and rational level (Davis, 2010: 83). This requires interaction and effective communication. A politician needs communication skills to achieve their goals, such as success in elections and influencing political agendas (Isotalus & Almonkari, 2012; Isotalus, 2017: 114–121). The performance of politics as a politician is a combination of argumentation, forming opinions, approaching people, and appealing. Campaign communication adds the need to sell ideas, issue calls to participate and vote, and reply to questions and comment on current issues, which increases the actors needs for and to participate in communication. In Isotalus and Almonkari’s (2012) study, Finnish politicians expressed that they would like the media to focus on their performance skills instead of their personalities. However, the choice is not always in their hands, and especially in the online environment, the public can freely post anything about the candidates, and more striking content may end up going viral (Johnson & Perlmutter, 2010). The personalization of politics adds pressure on party leaders and individual politicians (Isotalus, 2017: 51–53), and they need to be more skillful in communication and utilizing media. When political campaigning becomes more professional, it is crucial to understand its nature. Thus, analyzing what is emphasized in political campaign communication becomes an important factor. Currently, increasing numbers of marketing and communication professionals are working in the political field with several parties, and politicians are dependent on them (Kantola & Lounasmeri, 2014; Reunanen & Kunelius, 2021: 98). Railo et al. (2016) and Isotalus (2017: 134, 138) view this as an indication of a change towards an added professionalism in the field. So far, minimal attention has been placed on image building and political communication coaching in Finnish political life, which has been shown in research addressing both campaign personnel and politicians. For example, Isotalus (2017: 138) calls for an education of political communication professionals in Finland, which currently (and unlike in many other countries) does not exist. Acta Wasaensia 35 In relation to citizens, the work of a politician can be considered as a service profession, where the base line is serving the public, and hence considering the voters as recruiters. (Finstad & Isotalus, 2005.) During campaign times, politicians cannot focus all of their interactions on the public, yet continuous interaction is needed to build trust and actual interest among the public. When campaigning as a political candidate, a politician can be seen as an active actor. Politicians are visible in broadcast media such as newspapers and television news. During campaign periods, especially party leaders are presented in televised debates, and they tour the country with other candidates to meet the local public. However, the politician is always a member of a collective, i.e. their party, and their responsibilities lie both with the voters and the party. But party membership naturally has an effect on the values of the politician, on their decision-making, as well as on the perceptions that other people have about them. Therefore, the party brand also influences the personal brands of its member politicians. The official requirements for a politician are determined in the Electoral Act which also governs elections and campaigns (Election Act of Finland 714/1998). Parliamentary election candidates must meet the following minimum requirements for eligibility: 18 years of age, Finnish citizenship, eligible to vote, and does not hold a military office or high office in the Finnish court or governance. Candidates can only be listed for one party in one electoral district. However, they are not bound by their home municipality when choosing their district for candidacy (Ministry of Justice, 2020). All Finnish citizens of 18 years of age and over are entitled to vote, and voting is organized both in advance and on the actual voting day. Citizens living abroad may also participate through postal voting. In Finnish law, politicians in their role are considered as public figures who enjoy a more narrow protection of privacy (Penal Code for Finland 531/2000), which, for example, allows media to cover and assess them while they are performing their duties in this role. After meeting the official requirements for eligibility, politicians also need to appeal to the public, which often has to do with their personality, expertise or credibility. According to Isotalus (2017: 125), the ideal politician for Finnish people is a genuine, ordinary, professional person, with a matter-of-fact objective. Enli (2015a; 2015b) also discusses similar elements of genuine, authentic and real as being the most important, because a politician's representation is built on trust. However, the public can be critical when they evaluate politicians (Lalancette & Raynauld, 2017), and if promises on issues and values are not kept, then voters do not get value for their votes. 36 Acta Wasaensia As referred to in this study, a professional politician is a politician working full- time in politics and generating income through a role as a parliamentary representative. Even though the politicians in this study have been chosen because of their status in the election either as vote-pullers or party leaders (therefore having already established a role as a politician), in the campaign context of the study, they are referred to as candidates. This term is used when they are discussed in this study either as actors or subjects, and as those producing the posts and those who are being commented on in the post comments by the public. This points towards their status of applying for their politician role and the electoral mandate for it back from the public, thereby being candidates. However, while campaigning, most of them also act as representatives and professional politicians. 2.2! Strategic Campaigning in Social Media Political campaigning concerns society, power, and influence. In strategic campaigning, the campaign’s aims are defined related to these, i.e., reaching a majority position in the parliament, and the campaign is planned accordingly. Strategic campaign communication concerns the managed communication process in campaigning and policy-making, where goals are set and results are expected, shaping activities and including the right actors in the process according to expectations (Holtzhausen & Zerfass, 2015; Kiousis & Strömbäck, 2015: 384). It is further related to political marketing and political public relations. Strategic professional campaign communication means that professionals in marketing and communications coach politicians, plan campaigning, write speeches, and aim to influence the media (Isotalus, 2017: 134–138), and paid advertising is also widely used. Different measurement and analysis methods are needed to see the effects of party communication, and that different media are used effectively. This highlights the intentional nature of communications when referring to strategic communications. Integrating social media strategically in candidates’ communication requires continuous effort, and not just visits to a particular site during campaign periods (Blegind Jensen & Dyrby, 2013), and subsequently, this requires a plan and method of execution for all their social media content. Platforms and also their use have changed since campaign strategies have been initially researched in political communication by Lilleker et al. (2011), who concluded that online campaigning focuses on the information-heavy mode through websites. Platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook offer possibilities for a more dynamic interactive form of content promotion, which Lilleker et al. (2011) call for, and their increased popularity has introduced them as channels for political and especially campaign communication. They allow for multimodal Acta Wasaensia 37 content such as the sharing of images and videos, which Enli (2015a, 2015b) discusses as an image-building strategy. This is also an element in branding, which Gorbatov, Khapova, and Lysova (2018) define as the construction of personal brands, and constitutes a strategic process where positive impression management is created, positioned and upheld, and then communicated to the audience. In 2011, Herkman (2011: 156) considered the role of the internet in Finland as mainly a supporting channel for marketing and campaigning. In the 2015 election, Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 305) noted a remarkable increase in the parties' guidelines for the growing importance of different social media platforms in campaigning. In the election of 2019, Herkman's (2011) idea of the supporting role was directly challenged, with many candidates and parties relying heavily on online forums in their campaigns. However, this increase in social media use, together with the added regulation on campaign funding, requires more expertise and therefore a strategic take on online communication within campaign teams. The rules and norms of new forms and channels of communication vary. Even though having control over one’s own social media profiles and their content might seem easier than exerting control over media and journalists, the variety and spread of different outlets challenge this control, both from the perspective of talent and know-how, and also the ability to manage content. Those candidates who can effectively combine social media and broadcast media can become the most influential, in that they can get their online messages to broadcast media and gain exposure through their online activities, and vice versa gain more exposure for their broadcast media exposure by sharing it through their online channels. In Finland, many voters change their position between elections (Railo et al., 2016: 334), and voters change their minds, find new candidates, jump between parties, and get drawn to strong personal brands. Therefore, successful campaigning can make a difference for the candidates. During the elections of 2015, over one-third of constituents chose their party during the election campaign, and over 60% of the constituents waited until the last two weeks before the election day before they chose who to vote for (von Schoultz, 2016: 160). This describes the significance of campaigning in Finland, and supports my decision to focus on communication during the last month preceding the election. For a candidate to get voters on board and stay there, there has to be appealing and ongoing communication that reaches the electorate at significant times. This communication also needs to be where the public is, which explains why it has moved rapidly online. Social media is an important channel for reaching a significant voting block that absorbs their campaign content only through social media channels. The differences between resources are suggested to be more equal between parties and candidates because communication online is seen as being more economical (Strandberg, 2016: 97, 38 Acta Wasaensia 112). However, while strategic communication expertise becomes an asset through the professionalization of campaign communication and more professional communication online, it is also resource-intensive. But overall, most elected candidates exhibit a versatile use of all the communication platforms used in their campaigns, so having multiple means and abilities is needed to succeed in this particular activity. Bossetta (2018) states that the digital architecture of the platforms affects the political communication conducted on them. This architecture consists of network structure, functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication. These are and should be factors when political campaigns are planned and executed. At a basic level, politicians and their campaign offices need to consider which demographics they are targeting, which type of content is influential, and acknowledge the possibilities of allocating financial resources across different platforms. The versatile use of social media and the internet by candidates increased significantly in the Finnish parliamentary elections of 2019 (Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 304). Both the online presence of candidates and the electorate's online activity grew. Almost 90% of the candidates were on Facebook, and over half (53%) of the candidates were using Twitter. Over 40% of the candidates were using Instagram. Those candidates who were already in parliament were more active on different platforms than their contenders. Also, candidates from larger parties were more active. This indicates that campaign resources matter in candidates' social media presence, even though social media is mostly free and accessible to everyone. Garzia (2014: 86) calls for more studies on whether the electorate judges the politician against a role or as the person they are. This study sheds light on this question by analyzing how candidates are being discussed online. While the internet has not necessarily had a significant role in the formation of fundamental political values or the party choice of an individual, it influences the forming of opinions on individual politicians and topics (Hoff, 2010), and some parties are currently planning their agenda-setting and emphasis together with the electorate through social media. In 2004, Cornfield (2004: 107–108) recognized the growing role of online campaigning, calling for ways to utilize it more efficiently. In 2019, the ‘hypermedia’ setting where old and new campaign tools and platforms mix, has become a standardized practice in professional campaign communication (Lilleker, Tenscher & "t#tka, 2015). Understanding this setting is important, as professional campaigning shifts even more towards the utilization of social media channels, and the online context becomes significant for all in regard to establishing politics, participating in politics, and following politics (Bossetta, Acta Wasaensia 39 2018; Grant, Moon & Busby Grant, 2010; Jacobs & Spierings, 2016; Strandberg, 2016: 113.) But it all happens through content produced in these arenas for communication, and in each arena, that content is managed in diverging ways depending on the possibilities of the platform. 2.2.1! Arenas and content of campaigning The arenas of election campaign communication have changed together with technological and social developments. The first forums of election campaigning were town meetings and other face-to-face situations where people met. The rise of broadcast media brought newspaper advertisements and articles as a platform for elections. Later, radio and television again changed the importance of rhetoric and appearance with the introduction of election debates and interviews. Figure 3 presents the various broadcast media structures in relation to election campaign communication. Generally, they are controlled by the guidelines for journalism and broadcasting, and represent the traditional media (The Union of Journalists in Finland, 2011). As Figure 3 shows, increased fragmentation appeared in campaign communication with the development of the internet. The ease with which to start websites had parties and candidates building websites for promotion and information spreading. These quickly added personal blogs that are still a meaningful way to communicate arguments and political issues to the public. But instead of moving from one forum to another, ultimately, the forums and ways of communicating have increased both in number and the type of communication available. Particularly, social media platforms center around campaign events because they allow fast information to be given about the campaign trail. They can also be used to broadcast events and extend campaign trail conversations beyond the events. Different platforms complement each other (Lilleker, Tenscher & "t#tka, 2015) and support different aims, and for example, Twitter is suggested to support dialogue with the electorate better than Facebook (Graham et al., 2013; Enli and Skogerbø, 2013). 40 Acta Wasaensia Figure 3. Arenas of election campaign communication Figure 4 shows that various factors affect candidates' social media use in political campaigns. The audience, the electoral system, the candidate's current position, and the candidate's party are the main factor determining how candidates use social media. These primary elements have determining elements that candidates also consider when communicating in their campaigns, for example, predictions about the election result, their preference in platforms and social media use in general, their voter demographic, their parties' general approach to social media, and their opponents' use of social media. Figure 4. Factors influencing a political candidate´s campaigning on social media (modified from Obholzer & Daniel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�$#%6)2(#)'2( Acta Wasaensia 41 Obholzer and Daniel (2016) conclude that the use of social media in campaigning is different depending on the electoral institution, and is affected by the candidate's party, target audience, voters, and legislator characteristics. Usually, those aiming for a younger voter base are more active on social media. Mobilizing younger voters for the campaign is more effective through social media (Aldrich et al., 2016). Mellon and Prosser (2017) have found that British social media users are younger, better educated, and more attentive to political issues. But they argue that because of this, for Facebook and Twitter, the user group is not representative of the whole population. However, Finnish election studies find a more heterogenic user group in social media following political communication (Strandberg, 2016: 105–111; Marttila et al., 2016: 117–118). As represented in Figure 4, the candidates’ position in the election is also another deciding factor in their social media presence. Those candidates with fewer resources or who are in a weaker position regarding the elections are more likely to use social media more in their campaigning. Strandberg (2016: 106, 109) suggests that online campaign communication is still controlled by bigger parties and parliament members, and they tend to use social media merely to distribute material. Accordingly, this would seem to imply that social media campaigning does not always work to the benefit of smaller candidates and parties. However, Gibson and McAllister (2011) see benefit in breaking away from traditional means and exploiting new ways and channels which serve smaller parties and younger candidates. This ongoing debate on whether social media campaigning promotes this is referred to as equalization or normalization which means that the dominant and established actors benefit more from social media activities, and has interested several researchers in political communication (Lev-On & Haleva-Amir, 2016). Even though some research has found support for less known candidates benefitting from social media (see Samuel-Azran, Yarchi & Wolfshed, 2015), a fair argument is that since more strategic communication on social media is resource- intensive, it benefits the major actors who have a ready-built exposure and more resources in terms of both human capital and finances. This approach has also guided my selection of data to include vote-pullers and party leaders. The candidate’s party and the guidelines and culture for communication of the party also affect the use of social media. Political parties often have a “prototype representative” who defines how the other party members are defined (Figure 4; Keipi et al., 2017: 25). In this study, the vote-puller candidates and party leaders are all candidates with general or concentrated visibility, with added attention to them as a person (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). Thus, their social media activity can partly be seen as building an image for the whole party. Castells (1997: 360–361) terms this condition as ‘the prophet’, where one person gives voice and 42 Acta Wasaensia defines the social media behavior in a group. This was seen as the case with Alexander Stubb from the National Coalition Party when he used Twitter dominantly in its early years (Hämäläinen & Stubb, 2016). From the Finns Party, party leader Jussi Halla-aho provides a similar example by almost always representing a party in their online campaign videos, and was seen to be especially active during the European Union parliamentary election campaign in 2019. Some candidates actively use social media to interact with the public, and even parties form agendas through social media. For example, Donald Trump's direct and informal communication in the US political context has caused researchers to suggest a trend towards de-professionalization political campaigning, and adopting an almost amateur approach in political communication (Enli, 2017). While Donald Trump represents a case for de-professionalism in political communication, it is viewed in this study as an exceptional case that does not apply to how campaign communication has developed in Finland. However, some Finnish politicians approach the electorate spontaneously and with a less polished and strategic social media style. This type of approach is typically used by, for example, populist movements (de Vreese et al., 2018), and as stated before, The Finns Party has been exceptionally successful with this style. Particularly, it can be seen that the informal styles in communication of populist movements and candidates offer appealing content, which can help to mobilize masses. In a study by Isotalus and Almonkari (2014), politicians criticized traditional media logic, and the interviews by Reunanen and Harju (2012: 135) revealed that politicians experienced Facebook as a ‘forced necessity’ requiring a presence even though there was no interest. However, they also experienced more interaction and positive feedback through their Facebook presence. While this study does not survey candidates on their feelings about their Facebook use, their content production can indicate their attitudes towards the significance of Facebook in their campaign. Overall, all parties and politicians have produced online content for their campaigns from a fairly early stage when possibilities like blogs were introduced. However, the significance of the internet and social media was evidently more visible in the Finnish election campaign communication context, notably in the Presidential elections of 2012 where the campaign of Pekka Haavisto created an online movement that exploited social media so skillfully that an unexpected second round in the elections became a reality (Eränti & Lindman, 2014). Thus, for Finnish politicians the internet is not just a tool, and it includes channels and platforms that offer a possibility for the candidates to convince constituents of both topic issues and their own personal appeal (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 257). Acta Wasaensia 43 Studies suggest that for many politicians, the use of social media in campaigning has contributed to the campaign's success (P!tru$, 2015), even to the extent that a candidate can succeed without the use of traditional media forms, but not without making an effort in the digital world (Mattila et al., 2020: 82). However, some studies also contest the correlation between campaign success and social media use (Zhao, Lampe & Ellison, 2016). Strandberg and Borg (2020: 106) evaluate that the use of social media has increased the interactive nature of communication. However, this interaction is still a question of debate if the use of different platforms is analyzed. The use of social media by election candidates has been researched in regard to interaction and communication flow (Kalsnes, 2016; Nelimarkka et al., 2020), especially during elections (Isotalo et al., 2019), and benefits have been found for candidates who exploit these interaction possibilities (Grant, Moon & Busby Grant, 2010). However, these studies also highlight a need for qualitative research, which Strandberg and Carlson (2020: 84) note as being limited but highly needed regarding Finnish political communication. Also in Finland, more country-specific research is needed, and so far, only the Finns party has been analyzed as succeeding specifically through social media use (Maasilta 2012: 17, 113; Niemi, 2012; 2013; Ylä-Anttila, 2020). But regardless of national perspectives, more qualitative research in the area also contributes to the available research on online discussions and their characteristics. My choice to focus on Facebook out of the different platforms present on social media is supported by both the gap in qualitative Facebook research in campaign communication, and also Facebook being more representative of the general voting population than Twitter (Isotalo et al., 2019; Mellon & Prosser, 2017), which is often referred as the elite social media platform in the Finnish context (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016, 205; Ruoho & Kuusipalo, 2018; Vainikka & Huhtamäki 2015). So far, the limited research on the social media use of elected candidates (Marttila, 2018: 72) has only recognized the centrality of Facebook as a tool for the Haavisto presidential campaign in 2012, and as a factor in the success of the Finns Party (Eränti & Lindman, 2014; Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 171–175). The choice to focus on Facebook in this study is justified both because of its size and the comprised demography of the electorate, defining its relevance as a campaign platform and addressing a noticeable gap in Facebook research in the field of Finnish political communication. When communicating on Facebook, the candidates target their messages to their target demographics. These form the target audience that they consider when planning and executing their communication in any channel. 44 Acta Wasaensia 2.2.2! Target audience To understand the construction of politicians' personal brands, it is necessary to reflect on the concept of the audience because it is for this specific group that the impression management work is done. However, this raises valid questions as to whether a politician's role is similar to a performance, and indeed who the audience of a politician is in terms of the whole public or just the electorate. Still, it is justified for resource planning that politicians establish their target demographics and focus on the target audience, i.e. the audience they target their messages and persona representations towards. Cheung (2000: 45) reminds us that a person's self-presentation is always multiple, and depends on the environment. While a potential audience is always imagined, when planning communication to a certain type of group, it can also be targeted. However, these expectations are not necessarily going to be met. Personas can include different elements of identities like gender, nationality, religion, family relationships, sexuality, occupation, free-time, political stance, and several more facets depending on the context, the audience, and the motive to present a persona (see Chapter 3). Some users make decisions regarding platforms based on, for example, showing a professional self somewhere like Twitter or LinkedIn, or performing a private self in a more closed platform like Instagram or Facebook, with sometimes more restricted privacy settings (Scolere, Pruchniewska & Duffy, 2018). Thus, the target demographic is simultaneously considered alongside the type of content when anything is shared on social media, which also affects the choice of platform to be used (Zhao, Lampe & Ellison, 2016). The online world allows for a precise modeling of the self because of the extent of the audience, efficiency, convenience, and the lack of actual physical presence (boyd, 2014). Often for candidates, the public self is consciously constructed, or at least polished for the electorate. Also, paid targeting functions allow for even more specific planning for particular demographics. However, politicians and their self- representations are always dependent on their public off-line self, since they are public personas. Therefore, their online representation is merely an extension or an addition to what they already ‘are’ in the eyes of the public. Individuals shape and transform these representations based on their environment, and as boyd (2014: 48–49) describes, "self-presentations are never constructed in a void". According to boyd (2014: 31–32), social media has brought us both "collapsed context and invisible audiences." By her definition, a user does not always know the exact audience they have online. But regardless of this, the content is created for a target audience. However, the audience following and viewing the content is relatively unknown, especially when accounting for those unaccounted users who Acta Wasaensia 45 refrain from engagement thus leaving no mark of having viewed or even reacted to, for example, a post. But success cannot be measured based solely on the audience on social media. As Eränti and Lindman (2014) argue, the number of followers should not be regarded as an indication of the number of final votes or the influence of social media on the campaign. For example, in a study analyzing MEPs and their use of social media for connecting with an audience, it was found that the followers of the MEPs had a keen interest and awareness of European politics, which questions the representativeness of the followers for the total population (Roginsky, 2020). Mellon and Prosser (2017) found similar results in a British context, finding that social media audiences on Twitter and Facebook were different from the general population in terms of political ideas, voting tendencies, being least likely to vote, and more likely to support the left. However, they regarded these differences as arising from the demographic differences between users and non-users of social media. Importantly, their result show that when considering the audience on Facebook, it is not a representation of the general public, but more a representation of those using social media. For the politicians in the data, the audience could be what Nelimarkka et al. (2020) have suggest as those who have "liked" the page, thereby following it at least in theory. A target audience includes those who the candidates wish to become page followers and engage with their content. Especially, the audience goes where its content of interest is. The algorithm exposes the page content more for the followers than random users. This can be further developed with Rudd's (2016: 166) idea of active media consumers who influence the content rather than just passively consume it. This can be seen, for example, in online discussions where the topics readily switch, with the active discussion transforming, for instance, a campaign mobilization call into a debate on immigration politics. Therefore, the issues and direction of political communication online in fact lie in the hands of the active users who are participating in the discussion, rather than with those who start the conversations. 2.2.3! From audience to users The role and power of the audience have shifted with the introduction and especially the growth of social media networks. They are no longer those who just read messages and follow performances. Instead, even though politicians present their personas online, the audience can also participate in their negotiation, so becoming actors in the process (Kannasto, 2020) and the audience has power. But unconvinced constituents who can shift either for or against a candidate are seen as the most crucial ones, since many voters in Finland tend to make their decision 46 Acta Wasaensia at a late stage (von Schoultz, 2016: 160). As a further consideration, the public can also cause damage if agitated in the wrong way, for example, by spreading harmful content online. The view of the audience and its power in this study continues from that of Carpentier (2011), emphasizing that to have an active/passion dimension, it needs to be combined with a participation/interaction dimension. Stieglitz and Dang- Xuan (2012) and Vissers and Stolle (2014a, 2014b) propose that social media can increase political participation. Also, Boulianne (2019) evaluates the public’s possibility for voicing political opinions as one of the greatest benefits of social media. Especially, it offers individuals possibilities to participate, form opinions, and express themselves through different platforms, and encourages these activities more than can be seen with traditional broadcast media. In addition to producing their own content, the audience also distributes content by choosing and sharing it, and in this way, through social curation, affects the circulation of content in social media (Villi, 2011). This participatory culture (Fuchs, 2014) separates social media from broadcasting media. In social media, the audience is not a passive message receiver, but rather an active signifier who carries out communicative actions. Also, their participation defines the monetization of their data derived from the different user activities, and there are no journalists that act as gatekeepers of what is passed and not passed on to the audience. Paasonen (2013: 26) also discusses the changing nature of the audience in the online context, and those who are sending messages are also receivers. This two- way flow is presented in Figure 5. Instead of a direction-centered flow of communication, the emphasis is on the network, how people are connected, and how the information flows. In political communication, this flow occurs between the public and the political actors, but not just from one to the other, but in both directions from both actors. Therefore, by acting as content producers (Paasonen, 2013: 37), these users become actors in the process. Suominen, Saarikoski, and Vaahensalo (2019: 17) remind us that the balance of roles is not equal, and that there are many more readers of messages than those writing them. Thus, the audience again cannot be defined based only on those participating. Also, the most opinionated participants usually talk the loudest and most frequently, which can cause a seeming imbalance of ideas on the platforms. Acta Wasaensia 47 Figure 5. Communication flow in political communication The success of internet campaigns is not only measured through directly influencing opinions. Instead, success can be seen in changing passive supporters into active participants who donate money, organize events, become volunteers (Strandberg, 2013), persuade their networks, promote candidates and recommend pages. This way, they participate in the campaign work and help organize the campaign with fewer resources (Eränti & Lindman, 2014). On social media, this converts to organic, un-paid reach and mobilizing people into talking with their network in real life, writing opinion statements in newspapers or online, and participating in campaign events. But so far, only limited evidence for successful mobilization and empowerment of the masses has been found for social media (Jensen, 2017). Carpentier (2007: 88) divides participation into two different types. The first is participation as an activity, and the second is participation through learning and adopting behavior from media. Participation in online discussions creates communities that construct common meanings, share ideas and construct negotiated representations of individuals. Thus, social media can construct and strengthen imagined communities which are fragmented; some are tiny and strictly closed while others stay public and open to anyone (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 18). In the political debate context, one has to take possible polarization into account and remember to see who is stating something and what they represent (Guerra et al., 2013). While people are exposed to broader views through social media, they rarely engage in meaningful discussion and argumentation (Yardi & boyd, 2010). This superficial mode in the majority of !"#$%& '#($#"#)*+*,-#%./% *0#%1234,5 1.4,*,5+4% 6.772),5+*,.)% 85*.$%& 1.4,*,5+4%6+)9,9+*#%:% 1+$*;%.$%*0#% 5+7(+,<)% 5.772),5+*,.)% .//,5#%:%1'%(#$".) !"##$%&'()&"%* +,"- 48 Acta Wasaensia discussions challenges Carpentier’s (2007: 88) idea of participation through learning and adopting behavior. Impression management (as discussed in sociology by Goffman, 1959: 203–230), means that an individual is actively influencing others’ perceptions of themselves. These representations are managed through deliberating what kind of perceptions audiences gain, and also what perceptions audiences build. In the context of this study, the idea transfers to constructing personal brands in terms of the choices that the politicians make in leaving something out and including something else. The same consideration is needed for the public. When they comment, they might even give away clues to the performer or individual on how to act – what is expected. In this case, the person managing their impression could benefit from reading and interpreting these clues and modifying their ways accordingly if they plan to persuade that specific audience. This way, the audience can affect the communicative persona negotiation that the individual performs. On social media, this can happen, for example, in an online discussion where the politicians receive questions or comments about issues that they do not actively bring to the discussion themselves. They also receive comments and requests regarding, for example, performance in debates or activities in their campaign events, and furthermore, they decide whether they will allow some empowerment to the public by acting upon them, for example, by replying to or following the comments. 2.3! Platformed Interaction and the Electorate Strandberg and Carlson (2020: 82) argue that in Finnish political communication, the online context continues to grow in importance, supporting the focus of this study. This study focuses on mediated communication, which is something existing between the sender and the receiver, and which develops through technological advancements (Dainton & Zelley, 2011). In the context of political campaign communication between the candidate and the voter in social media, Nelimarkka et al. (2020) refer to this as platformed interaction. Media allows the channeling of information between the public and political actors, controlling political actors, and giving voice to different actors by providing forums for political communication so that also minorities and underrepresented groups can be heard (Herkman, 2011: 55). The online world provides individuals with a platform to network and engage in multiple mediated social activities that construct public mediated identities on a daily basis (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2015). Because media tends to favor individuals over parties and campaigns (von Schoultz, 2016: 159–160), politicians are often presented through multiple Acta Wasaensia 49 technologies and platforms, which also defines the mediatized persona, one of the five dimensions presented by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 68 - explained in detail in 3.2.1). These different platforms are used in different ways, but their main communication principles are similar (boyd, 2014: 5, 27, 38). In her social media research on teenagers, boyd (2014: 39–40) found that teens look for the best sites for their current particular problems and find people to connect with, giving an example of both using those sites and modifying the related landscapes. In this way, the network continually transforms both social media and its users. Rudd (2016: 163–165) describes political networks as information channels that the public can use to gain more knowledge, shape their views on political issues, and for engaging with politicians. He uses the term watchdog, but to him, online media has replaced traditional media in this role. Matheson (2016: 191) characterizes social media's role and its channels similarly to Rudd (2016), adding that the aspect of developing political ideas is more prominent than public debate. In this way, the public are not replacing traditional media, such as news, with social media. Instead, social media is used as an additional forum for engaging in communication, and providing material and ideas for agenda-setting. However, the effects of this remain debatable. For example, in a political journalism study with Norwegian local politicians, Skogerbø and Krumsvik (2015) found little evidence of agenda-setting or, unlike several other studies, any claim that social media content would transfer to traditional media, regardless of the high activity of politicians. This contrary conclusion may indicate the differences between local, national, and global politics, but determining this requires more research. Also, research on polarization in political communications suggests that political opinions do not change, but rather strengthen through political debates among the public online. So, especially in political communication, polarization in fact seems to strengthen as a result of political discussion online (Bail et al., 2018). The issue with social media in campaign communications is that communication through different platforms does not reach the electorate as a whole equally, nor has it been proven to add attachment or an interest in politics (Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 117–118). The platform affordances are given so the companies control what is possible in terms of organizing communication on each platform (Ridell, 2011: 20). These platforms also include several networks and communities, and each network also has its own communal culture, which then transforms its users' communication behavior (boyd, 2014: 5–6). This type of peer influence is also visible in the political context, where parties have their own norms and even guidelines for using social media platforms (Figure 2), text, and connectivity. By connecting with each other, the politicians also influence each other by learning, interacting, co-operating, and sharing each other's ideas (Svensson, 2014), thereby 50 Acta Wasaensia contributing to impression management (Goffman, 1959; "imunjak, 2018), and providing each other with publicity and credit. Politics is defined as a systematic activity where different interest groups are negotiating and competing for the use of resources, and also define the common rules (Herkman, 2011: 16). Since politics and political communication are professional activities, different actions are performed by the political offices and professionals, and the politicians themselves. Online, it is challenging to know whether messages are presented by politicians or their campaign offices, unlike in television debates where the audience can usually see the politicians speaking (Rudd, 2016: 165). However, in television, the message can also be crafted by someone else, but at least the politician's authentic performance is seen. Even though the internet allows for more direct access allowing easy accessible live broadcasts and interaction, Moog and Sluyter-Beltrao (2016: 30–56) claim that television will remain the most important political information source. However, younger generations have given up on television to some extent, and it is no longer the household's central item. Newer forms of participation such as social media offer more possibilities for participation and interaction, and allow all voices and opinions to exist. It is a useful forum for those who take the time to be heard. However, at the same time it might be seen as lowering the voices of those not participating because they are unwilling to do so publicly, or those with no access. Social media grew with people approaching it optimistically, but its adverse effects soon became visible (Vaidhyanathan, 2018). The algorithm functions of social media are criticized for destroying democracy and building a false image of societies and policies (Cho et al., 2020). For example, the viral nature of negative content has become evident (Knuutila & Laaksonen, 2020). Certain groups and people have more power and influence on different platforms, and while the platforms offer an inexpensive, even free, possibility for exposure, visibility can also be bought, giving more power to those with more resources and skills to exploit the platforms strategically. In Facebook, when there are many posts on a page within a short time period, the algorithm considers this as an activity that should be paid for. Therefore, unless the posts are produced as paid, sponsored ads, they will not get extensive exposure. Also, unless posts get reactions, they are not seen as getting exposure. This aspect therefore better serves parties that have more personnel for planning and creating engaging content, and also the financial resources for paid content. For campaigns, the traditional means of interaction has been to meet the public in town market squares, election panels, or at other communal events where public discussion is possible. But online, candidates can be reached directly by tweeting Acta Wasaensia 51 and tagging on Twitter, posting or commenting on Facebook, or by commenting on their blogs from the comfort of one's own home. Campaign blogs were the earliest forms of direct online communication from candidates to the electorate. Their benefits are communicating political messages, strengthening the candidate's political profile, and gaining exposure on broadcast media (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 257). Now, through websites of candidates and parties and online discussions, political communication can be found almost everywhere online. At first, politicians kept their online political communication formal in nature (Sey & Castells, 2004: 363–378), but nowadays, parties and politicians vary a lot in the ways they use social media (González Bengoechea, Fernández Muñoz & García Guardia, 2019). The online arena also poses other challenges. The critical voices stating that commercial platform providers such as Google, Facebook and Twitter focus on monetization at the expense of security and morality, and twisting search results, allowing hate speech, data acquisition, criminal activities, and false advocacy campaigns are increasing. The Presidential elections of 2019 and the global Covid- 19-pandemic had these platforms taking stands on content which was a significant development on their previous position as being "only platforms" that published user-generated content, and not media companies in the traditional sense. Media also carries legal and ethical responsibilities, which social media companies have argued they have no responsibility for. Thus, in these platforms, individual users control the communication, and broad content is ruled only by the algorithm set according to data monetization principles (Fuchs, 2014; Kreiss & McGregor, 2018b). Therefore, to understand how user-generated content can affect political communication, the characteristics of online discussions need to be described. 2.3.1! Characteristics of online discussions The overlap of mediatization and communication has generated entirely new forms of communication. User-generated online content such as selfies, viral videos and memes, has changed the way people communicate. This change is a continuous process as new emojis are created, new types of likes are introduced, and even new platforms are invented and popularized (see Guynn, 2020). Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 39–40) define this "increased remediation of interpersonal communication" as intercommunication. This two-way communication has been the core of social media, where networks are not built on authority. Previously dominant media forms such as television, newspapers and radio attach to this exchange of information not as 'those who control’, but more as ‘those whose content is shared’, and this user-generated distribution is one form 52 Acta Wasaensia of discussing (Villi, 2011). Traditional media has also established their presence on these platforms, and most media companies, newspapers and tabloids have a page on Facebook where they share their news in real-time, and television shows include e.g. Twitter feeds on their broadcasts to encourage real-time engagement on multiple platforms. In this study, public discussion in social media, more precisely on Facebook with posts and comments on public pages, is called online discussion. In general, online discussion is understood as a pair or a collection of initiating discussions, and the reply or replies to it on any web-based forum, such as a Facebook page post, Instagram post, discussion forum, or a comment chain in a website. Here, a post is understood as the initiation or call to discuss, and the reply or replies together with the post form the discussion (Farina, 2019). Therefore, a Facebook post alone, with no reactions, is just an attempt to discuss, not a discussion - rather, it can also be seen as either a failed invitation to discuss or a statement, which has no intention to invite discussion. These posts with no reactions on Facebook get little exposure because of the platform's algorithm, which gives more exposure to posts that get engagement. Also, the comments provoke other comments, but these are often written to be read as individual comments instead of an interaction or ongoing debate. However, the analysis in this study will include all posts and comments because they are all campaign communications that are visible to the public. Thus, they represent intercommunication where individuals produce content and also affect the professional content creation (Marshall, 2014; Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 39–40). Communication through different semiotic signals and signs has been a way of negotiating meaning before languages and letters were created. Even in the earliest online communications, emotions were expressed through combinations of different keyboard signs, such as :-). Stark and Crawford (2015) argue that emojis provide “visual vocabulary”, and they can help discussion participants in platforms to express their feelings and maintain social connections. While they can sometimes confuse, give conflicting cues, or only be understood within a particular community, they offer a rapid, one-click opportunity for expressing emotion and opinion. In this study, emojis are viewed both as a way to engage with the candidate, and an expression used to communicate in a discussion. According to Knuutila and Laaksonen (2020), the use of reactions, particularly negative ones, can affect the Facebook algorithm by increasing the circulation of the posts. In these “sticky” networks, affective content promotes more affective content which can stimulate stronger opinions and emotional content being produced in these discussions. Emotions are strongly present in online discussion (Laaksonen & Pöyry, 2018; Rantasila, 2018). Especially, there is a lot of critique towards officials Acta Wasaensia 53 (Hakala & Vesa, 2013: 234), politicians and the government, thus quickly producing negative representations of politicians. Because of the broad public exposure of these discussions, these representations and emotions can be significant for politicians' personal brands. However, not all online discussion participants seek to influence (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 257). Their motives and possibilities to participate in online discussions vary (Ibid. 18–19, 41), and opinion molding, information seeking, spending leisure time, or finding a place to share their own experiences with peers are common reasons to participate. Individuals consider online discussion as an everyday activity and as a means to get their voice heard (Hakala & Vesa, 2013: 239). According to boyd (2014: 7), after the rise of social media (around 2005), involvement in the platforms became a norm, and online, everyone has the right to join the discussion, form and present opinions, and start movements (Chadwick, 2011; Janssen & Kies, 2005; Papacharissi, 2004) in all different aspects of life. Participation is not the only role that social media creates for the electorate, and now, they can better control and set frames for political communication. Matheson (2016) identifies the challenge that online media sets for traditional media, where resources no longer dictate political communication, and both the discussion and visibility of politicians are run and monitored by the public rather than media producers. Matheson argues that the power shifts to the public's active members, thus making them both actors and participators within political communication. Yamamoto, Kushin and Dalisay (2013) have also found a positive correlation between political expression online and political participation, which reduces the power and status of media in relation to online discussion and its control. Social media has given this illusion of power to the public by allowing more interaction between the public and the parties and candidates through commenting, posting, tagging, and other central social media elements. So, what used to be gatherings of smaller town groups, clubs, and political meetings organized by parties and other collectives are now also taking place online, giving at least an illusion that everyone participates and that messages are being heard. Interactive digital media allows the public to decide whether they participate in a mediated or direct communication. The participants are looking for information and want to present their opinions. In online political discussions, participants tend to discuss issues with like-minded people (Haasio, 2015: 40;Rheingold, 1993; Valenzuela, Kim & Gil de Zúñiga, 2012), which reduces the possibility for them to be exposed to opposing views. Railo et al. (2016: 330) also remind us that social media conversations easily create bubbles where only those that share the same 54 Acta Wasaensia opinions are present in the discussion, so opinions can easily be enforced since no alternative arguments are presented. But this can create a false perception of opinions. In Facebook, this echo chamber effect is strengthened by the algorithm that is programmed to show the user similar content to content they have previously liked (Bail et al., 2018; Thorson et al., 2021). However, Campante, Durante and Sobbrio (2017) suggest that it increases different forms of political participation such as grassroot protest movements. Currently, it is possible to see a shift from Sey and Castell's (2004) view that the Internet's characteristics of two-way communication are not exploited in political communication. However, it is still mostly used as a tool for disseminating information (Nelimarkka et al., 2020), rather than actually calling for participation and interaction between politicians and the electorate (Ross, Fountaine & Comrie, 2015). This would require engaging in discussion and responding to the public (Blegind Jensen & Dyrby, 2013), and politicians might avoid this because engaging in debates can challenge their impression management and mitigate their control over it. My analysis will show how and to what extent Finnish politicians participate in these discussions and react to what the public are saying. This study approaches online discussion as the exchange of meanings between people. The focus on Facebook directs it this way, and there is no chatbot option for communicating on Facebook public pages, even though approaching online discussion requires acknowledging the existence of possible chatbots or virtual characters (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 16). Van Deursen and van Dijck (2013: 12) define conversation as information shared by two or more units addressing a shared medium. Importantly, there is no center dominating the conversation. Online, the discussion participants set the frames and control the direction of the conversations. Through the meta level of the discussion, where the focus is on the act of discussing, they can try to manage these contexts and directions (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 29), but in social media, frustration is often expressed towards others or even the way the platforms work. Online discussions vary on different platforms. They have a long history, starting already in the 1980s and moving quickly together with the technological transformation from coding uploads and simple text-based messages, into real- time interlinked multi-object messages in different social media forums. But the latter still resembles the original forms in many ways, and often they will sidetrack from the intended topics, and participants can ignore, oppose and provoke each other. As Suominen, Saarikoski, and Vaahensalo (2019: 17, 38, 53, 100) characterize, users aim to find communities, and the discussion follows and Acta Wasaensia 55 sometimes refuses to follow the ‘netiquette’, i.e. the norms for online discussion and behavior. This type of chaos, such as going off-topic and choosing random topics in online communication practices was seen as a negative turn by the older users of the historic BBS-forum, which was a bulletin board system used for online discussion at the beginning of the 1990s, when internet connections were made with modems through phone lines. Typically, in research, online discussion services are divided into synchronous and asynchronous forms. Most social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are more asynchronous, even though in some of them, discussions can also form in real-time. In these services, the discussion remains like an archive which also explains their main categorization of asynchronous services. However, this division is more technical since most users communicate fast, even in real- time, through social media platforms. But as Suominen, Saarikoski, and Vaahensalo (2019: 136) contest, this idea of an archive-nature is difficult to maintain in practice because social media discussions are hard to browse afterward, and while they might stay in the digital record, they are challenging to find because the platforms are not primarily built for storing and browsing past discussions. Karvonen (2008) states that media both describe and also affect reality. The situation is similar in platformed interaction, and while discussion and representations on social media portray the environment and the surrounding reality, simultaneously, they mold the user's perception and affect how they act. People are dependent on the information on politics provided by the media. It brings politicians close, under the public eye, and social media provides an easy and direct communication channel to them (Herkman, 2011: 27, 33; Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 106–107). Since 2011, all parties and leading politicians have been visible in the leading social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (Herkman, 2011: 82), and this mode of interaction enables politicians to message the electorate for free, without journalistic interference (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 300). Online discussion and communication are platform-dependent, meaning they are different on each platform (Nelimarkka et al., 2020). Strandberg (2008) points out that the online comments related to Finnish politics are usually negative in tone. In the first campaign blogs around 2000, some comment sections were closed because of the negative comments (see Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 252). However, Waterloo et al. (2017) argue that a positive communication style is more appropriate for expressions in social media. The Finns Party's success is an exception to this, supporting Strandberg (2008), because their communication on 56 Acta Wasaensia social media has focused on negative campaigning and attacks on other parties and policies (Niemi, 2013; Ylä-Anttila, 2020). Furthermore, their supporters are also active communicators in political online discussions, thus broadly promoting the party’s messages. In the Finnish political online discussion and its development, one of the most known political and societal discussion forums is the Hommaforum. Notably, it has contributed to well-known controversial candidates such as Jussi Halla-aho, the Finns Party leader and a current European Parliament member (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 253). While the aim of the forum is described as influencing politics and societal issues, it is often recognized as a forum for anti-immigration and nationalist politics. The forum is publicly connected with The Finns Party and seen as a contributor to their success in elections (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 171–175). As previously explained as typical with online discussions, the forum unites the like-minded, fosters opinion-forming, and the controversial discussions have also gained exposure in broadcast media. Of further note, their rhetoric has also spread in other forums, and new groups around similar ideologies have formed. In the context of political communication in Finland, online discussion has mostly been researched through the ideas of online democracy (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 13, 23), information seeking during a crisis (Haasio et al., 2018), and participation. Axford and Huggins (2001: 1–30) focused on the nature of word-based communication online, but were right in predicting the coming change towards more visual forms and possibilities. However, even though visuality has taken over most social media meaning-making, this change has still not become dominant in political communication online (Filimonov, Russmann & Svensson, 2016), supporting the choice to focus on text analysis in this study. According to Hakala and Vesa (2013: 218), online discussions can provide similar information for research to surveys or interviews, in regard to people's perceptions and information sharing. Online discussions are usually studied as discussions formed within a community. These communities are formed around a topic, for example, a personal interest or celebrity, and the communities typically have specific communication forms such as communal phrases, choices in words, or a specific style of humor (Laaksonen & Matikainen, 2013: 199). The idea of virtual communities as a like-minded virtual collective (see Rheingold 1993) does not directly apply in this study because multiple profile pages of different politicians from different parties are analyzed. However, active users and participants of political campaign discussions online may have, or at least form community-type communication ways, for example, relevant to specific party supporters. But Acta Wasaensia 57 regardless of this consideration, the discussion participants themselves have not necessarily formed any specific forms of communication or community-related text types. Therefore, the discussion can only be placed within the context of political communication, and more specifically, parliamentary election campaign communication and Facebook. So, it is therefore important to recognize this context, in order to understand the nature of the discussion. Online discussions can be positioned in the field of computer-mediated communication. Thurlow, Lengel and Tomic (2006: 14–16) describe it as a theory starting from the first digital computer invented, and continuously developing as computers continue to affect communications. The academic interest in this area started with how people were using computers. However, according to Thurlow, Lengel and Tomic (2006: 14–16),since the mid-1990s, the field has attracted new attention and broadened the scholarly interest to include "any human communication achieved through, or with the help of, computer technology" as computer-mediated communication. This computer-mediated communication enables the forming of communities through language, playfulness, and standard rules and norms (see Walther, 2006), yet these characteristics also make online discussion disruptive by nature. 2.3.2! Disruptive intercommunication? Social media as a public sphere includes more actors who participate in discussions that the digital platforms enable (Casero-Ripollés, 2018), and sets new rules in the process of discussion and forming opinions. It offers an additional public sphere where citizens meet, discuss and form opinions, as well as increasing the accessibility to information and sharing which enhances participation opportunities and supports the democratic ideal. However, there also institutions and political actors who interfere in these processes, which disrupts the original idea of Habermas (1989) about opinion-forming. For example, moderation can be seen as an act against citizen discussion and opinion-forming. Further, if the discussion is unbalanced, then in addition to limitations of access, instead of opinion forming and discussion, individuals shout their own opinions and often ignore the elements of listening and interaction. Issues of access, function, and research are also controlled by the platform owners such as Facebook and Twitter, who now govern how this additional public sphere functions with their interest being not with dedication to the public sphere and discussion, but rather with data collection and its monetization. While social media and its discussions often execute well the idea of subjecting the political system and decision-makers to criticism, the credibility of this criticism has suffered (Bennet & Livingston, 2018; 58 Acta Wasaensia Van Aelst et al., 2017), which is why social media can be viewed differently to the political and rational-critical public sphere which Habermas (1989) characterized. The public can easily disrupt communication strategies, and with the discussion that they create, they can steer topics in other directions and bring up unexpected issues. Tromble (2016) argues that a demand for interaction from the public would also engage politicians in discussions. Pertaining to the context of this study, when candidates engage, there is always a growing engagement among the public (Graham, Jackson & Broersma, 2014). This dialogue may further boost trust and empathy on both sides, for the politicians and the electorate (Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015). However, this forces campaigns to follow not just one professionally planned strategy, but also to take part in and react to discussions when needed. Social networking sites turn the control of content and framing away from mass media, and to PR teams and individual politicians (van Dijck, 2013). However, at the same time, some of that power also leaks to the individual users participating in online discussions. This public posting and commenting online on different platforms and forums where campaign communication is executed, has become influential in election campaigning. There are both one-way communication type communication platforms (i.e. campaign ads or articles on newspapers), and two- way communication platforms (i.e. social media channels where interaction between candidates and the electorate is usually public). Online, these discussions get significant exposure and can affect the perceptions and views of the audience exposed to it similarly to campaign advertisements. For businesses, this type of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is considered more effective and credible than professional marketing content (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels, 2009; Weisfeld- Spolter, Sussan & Gould, 2014). Its digital equivalent is called e-WOM, or electronic word-of-mouth marketing. In their research on political marketing, Iyer, Yazdanparast and Strutton (2017) found that age groups respond differently to messages, and older groups were more receptive to detailed and longer messages, while younger groups would respond better to brief messages online. Word-of-mouth marketing could similarly apply to politics, in that voting for someone because of a peer recommendation is more probable than voting for someone based on a campaign poster (Argan & Argan, 2012; Ozturk & Coban, 2019; Richey, 2008). In 2019, a project called Vaalivahti ("Who Targets Me?") in Finland started to monitor targeted political online ads, collecting the data of social media ads shown to citizens (Vaalivahti, 2019). Cornfield (2004: 107) acknowledged the necessity of managing people and their online networks, but online campaigning has focused Acta Wasaensia 59 on marketing text and the idea of targeting ads. This study goes beyond this to develop an understanding of those online networks, and how personas and meanings are negotiated in online discussion on Facebook. This can also be viewed as word-of-mouth marketing, or electronic word-of-mouth-marketing (E-WOM), which can affect people's voting choices and how they view the candidates. Similar to how disruptive marketing has created new ways and innovations on marketing products, online discussion is now affecting political communication and campaigning. Importantly, more people are also getting their news and content on social media instead of following content produced with journalistic standards. Consequently, more candidates and parties can be seen to be using disinformation to their advantage, in the approach that an audience will believe what they read online with little or no source evaluation. This could superficially be argued as promoting democracy when all information is available for everyone. However, the polarization of arguments is becoming stronger because of how opinions form on and through social media. Research by Bail et al. (2018) again suggests that instead of political discussion online molding old perceptions by opening new arguments and providing more information, the views that one possesses tend to strengthen, along with a resistance to new views as a result of online debates. Instead of managing communication, content producers are left more with the task of managing the context and presenting themselves so that their target audiences can find them (boyd, 2014: 46). However, promoting this access is not enough, and the politicians must also represent and construct their political personas to appeal to the public. Sánchez-Villar (2019) brings up the disruptive nature of content production in the form of blogs in political communication, referring to events like the Arab Spring. The public can also attempt character assassination when they talk about the candidates in terms of slandering political opponents (Samoilenko & Mason, 2021), and in campaigns, this is often conducted by independent and dedicated supporters whose volunteering is not led from the campaign office. Thus, the public can and will steer the direction and tone of communication through social media, and its possibilities allow this stream of (dis)information to spread quickly and globally when the topics and the public call for it. A recent change in algorithm makes it so that in Facebook, discussions can flow on an individual's feed because someone in their network just liked, shared, or commented on something, and this affects what people see online. In addition to this seemingly random algorithm-controlled flow of messages (Thorson et al., 2021), there are also sponsored ads and messages that are carefully chosen to 60 Acta Wasaensia target specific groups, and simple tools like reaction buttons that influence what is shown and what is not to the user (Beer, 2009). Online discussions also add other elements, like trolls who disturb the communication flow in the political discussion arena. For example, there are electronic bots, fake accounts (Bastos & Farkas, 2019), and individuals who comment and spark discussions out of pure entertainment for themselves or to advance their own agendas and preferences (Virkar, 2014). Also, the act of "flaming", which is the intentional sparking of disputes and fights in online discussions, has attracted the interest of scholars (Aiken & Waller, 2000; Alonzo & Aiken, 2004). Research suggests that flaming occurs specifically with political discussions (Eveland & Hutchens Hively, 2009) when there are opposing views (Hutchens, Cicchirillo & Hmielowski, 2014), and that users perceive flaming as acceptable in political discussions (Hmielowski, Hutchens & Cicchirillo, 2014). Astroturfing is term used for professional and organized trolling activities, and challenges the recognition of what is real by inserting strategically produced fake content into the middle of discussion (Keller et al., 2020). These activities can significantly affect society and opinion-forming (Kovic et al., 2018), so education about them is necessary, and for example, the Finnish national broadcasting company Yle has started a website where people are taught about trolling through an online game project (Yle Newslab, 2019). The public can discuss their political opinions on online forums, Facebook and other network sites, together with arguments for or against a particular position. Herkman (2011: 80–81) calls this counter politics, which is public activity undertaken outside official politics. These topics can turn into real politics if the public pressure becomes big enough and the politicians include the issues into their agenda. For example, the Finnish political party Movement Now led by Hjallis Harkimo, set one of their objectives to be an online discussion forum where citizens could voice their opinions on political issues, and in this way guide their representatives in political decision-making. In its official communication, Movement Now emphasizes that it is not a political party, but rather a movement of the people (Harrinvirta, 2019). This rhetoric aims to present the connection of the movement with people, so breaking away from traditional politics and power structures. More professional marketing techniques have been used in campaigning since the 1960s, but the increased importance of media has placed an importance on professionalism, strategic planning, and the standardization of practices. Cornfield (2004) places ‘the message’ at the center of professional campaigning. However, with the increased personalization of politics, personalities and Acta Wasaensia 61 individual politicians tend to dominate over messages, since they are also communicating the messages. On the other hand, the possibilities for sizeable public discussion have grown with social media, and new platforms are continuously being created. But regardless of these new platforms, Facebook has stabilized its position as the most used platform both for the politicians and the public. 2.4! Facebook Campaign Pages and Profiles The Facebook presence and activity of politicians is not self-evident. While many politicians have a Facebook profile, they may not even actively update it themselves, but leave it to their campaign staff. One example of this in the data is the candidate Ben Zyskowicz, whose profile in March 2021, after data collection, was updated to state that the page is managed by the politician's support group. Even though social media exposure for political actors has rapidly increased in importance since the introduction of platforms like Facebook and Twitter that allow for real-time global interaction, there are still popular and well-exposed politicians with no strategic online content. The broadcast media like television, newspapers and even radio, still has a firm ground in political communication, and for example, television campaign debates hold their position in audience statistics. However, strong political brands might be carried through in online discussions, regardless of the presence or absence of the politicians concerned. One example of this in the data is the party leader of the Finns Party, Jussi Halla-aho, who does not have a public Facebook page. However, he has built a strong online presence elsewhere through his blog, Twitter, and a personal Facebook profile (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 254), and through systemic and strategic online communication, has established himself as one of the vote-pullers in the election campaigns he participates in. Different platforms have specific profile types, through which users can manage their accounts and content. Politicians and parties use these for different functions, i.e. informing, interaction, calls to vote, calls to participate, self- representation, and topical discussion. Figure 6 shows the opportunities politicians and parties have for platforms, multimodal content, exposure and engagement, and what type of communication can be performed on these platforms. In Facebook, candidates can set up public politician profiles and keep their personal profiles private. This option is often used by celebrities, but also by other brands, such as companies, services, and products. In this case, individuals are often referred to as "followers" on the page instead of "friends". These profiles include multimodal elements, where the page content consists of text, links, 62 Acta Wasaensia images, photos, videos, connections, and network and personal information (Salonen, Kannasto & Paatelainen, forthcoming). Their exposure and engagement occurs through likes, shares, comments, and reactions produced by followers. In Finland, most professional politicians have chosen to maintain a public politician profile page. These are managed continuously, but their nature changes during campaigns so that there is more activity and campaign-related content. Figure 6. Social media profile of a political party and candidate According to Taddicken's (2013) study on online self-disclosure, social media applications are dependent on the social relevance that the users see in them. As van Dijck (2013) and Hall and Caton (2017) argue, the control of self-presentation on these platforms can conflict with users, employers, and the platform owners' interests. Users choose a few channels and applications that they focus on. These choices are based on their social environment and personal preferences, and they also enable different types of representations. For example, more visual individuals may turn to Instagram, while Twitter appeals to those who are good with text and sharp messaging (Lee, 2013). This can affect how the persona is viewed. Also, the more focus there is on a specific social media application, the more information is shared. So, the candidates who view Twitter as relevant in their social network and who are focused on Twitter as an application end up sharing a lot more on that application. Taddicken (2013) also concludes that users share more personal and sensitive information when their friends use the same platform/channel. But the focus of her study was on personal profiles instead of the public pages that are analyzed in this study. In these, politicians have Acta Wasaensia 63 supporters, and for example journalists as their followers, while their friends may be connected with their private profiles (see Reunanen & Harju, 2012: 138). According to van Dijck (2013) and Enli (2015a), Facebook facilitates personal self- presentation, while, for example, LinkedIn requires a more professional and promotional approach. During their campaigns, through their public pages politicians mobilize and call people to participate in campaign events; call them to vote; post pictures from campaign events, and present arguments related to the topics that are part of their individual or party's agendas. They can also share posts by their fellow candidates, participate in public discussions, or comment on the actions of other candidates. In regard to positive commenting on others, Svensson (2014) calls this public endorsement virtual back-patting. In this way, candidates can manage political communication in platforms by utilizing and promoting each other's exposure, thus benefitting all of the actors in the process. But Laaksonen et al. (2017) again suggest that this type of candidate-to-candidate interaction often takes the form of negative campaigning via social media, where candidates enter into disputes with other candidates and shame their opponents. In addition to policy messages, politicians can also present their private life by commenting on leisure time activities, showing support for teams or artists, or perhaps involving family and friends in the photos or texts that they share (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 311–312). But there are visible differences between candidates and their behavior regarding private and intimate exposure. For example, some only portray official pictures on their public profile pages, while some include selfies and describe their family moments. Others start and continue their political messages through their private profiles while others systematically build, together with their PR-agencies, their public politician profile pages completely separate from their personal profile page. However, a wide range of politicians work somewhere between these two extremes with different platforms and content overlapping between their private and professional representations of self. 2.4.1! Facebook as a platform for reaching the public By 2010 in Finland, it was rare to encounter a 20-30-year old without a Facebook account. With the development of the commercial possibilities and organizations entering the platform, the platform’s popularity grew among other age groups. With the introduction of new social networking services, the popularity of Facebook has been declining among young people who view it as too commercial and too middle-aged. This change has been encouraged by new services such as Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, that have served millennials (those born after 1980) and their interests better. Even though the decline in Facebook’s popularity 64 Acta Wasaensia is visible, it still remains the most popular social media platform, and its power and influence as a tool for communication are undeniable. With almost 2.5 billion global users in 2019, Facebook was the most used social networking site (Statista, 2020). There were about 2 900 000 monthly Facebook users in Finland, with only around 200 000 of them being under-age, so the voting age population with a Facebook account that they use monthly is remarkable (Pönkä, 2019). Facebook also remains widely popular with the +30-year old population, making it a wide- reaching platform, especially in regard to political communication (Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 114). On Facebook, individuals can roam through two types of representations of people, brands, or organizations, either a private profile or a public page. Each profile is presented as a timeline set chronologically in order of last posts or comments (Fuchs, 2014). Private profile Facebook connections work in the form of friend requests and acceptances. Users can also set up their private profiles in multiple ways; open, partly open, or entirely closed. The privacy settings allow users to decide whether they can be found on the platform, whether other users can see their content, and define specific groups for friends with different privacy settings. These can be further set to define which photos or posts are shown to which group. However, the user rules allocate much power to the company to exploit the content of users, for example, in terms of photo rights. These user agreements also restrict the communication, to some extent, to the framework set by the company, and this has caused some people to turn away from the platform. Furthermore, personal data is also used for advertisement targeting functions (Beer, 2009). User-generated content, user behavior, and demographic data are at the center of Facebook's business model (Fuchs, 2014). Not all users are aware of these functions, nor do they understand the logic of the algorithms employed, which is also the company's biggest secret (Beer, 2009). Users often tend to sign off on the user guidelines without reading them thoroughly, which results in them not knowing what they have allowed the company to do with their information. When social media is studied, the essential elements of each platform's business need to be remembered. A major company owns each platform and application (Laaksonen, Matikainen & Tikka, 2013: 14), and delivering revenue functions as their target (Fuchs, 2014). Therefore, data collection based on marketing benefits and targeted advertising is the core business of companies such as Facebook. Different channels on social media offer different properties. Their technical possibilities, together with the group using them form the way they are used. Therefore, the communication possibilities of each channel are different, which also changes the way each channel is used in political campaign communication. Acta Wasaensia 65 For example, Twitter offers an arena with journalists and politically active participants. Instagram, on the other hand, focusses on pictures and visual material. Facebook is the largest everyday forum for different age groups, and offers possibilities to spread news, write short or long posts, and reach out to people through their own profile pages and different groups that have been founded around, e.g. special interests, work, and regions. Facebook is a social networking service founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. It was first designed as a service for Harvard students, but by 2006 had become open to everyone over 13 years of age after its introduction to other universities (Brügger, 2015). The United States expansion grew into an international forum, where individuals could connect, post to each other's walls, share pictures and posts about their everyday life, and also connect with brands. The platform proliferated, and with the marketing potential which the company saw, the developers started adding new features, developing communication, and modifying the algorithms. Since 2008, similar to other social networking sites, the focus of the platform became monetizing the activities carried out on the platform through maximizing the data traffic of content and people (Fuchs, 2014). On May 18, 2012, the company held its initial public offering (IPO) with a peak market capitalization of $ 104 billion (Tangel & Hamilton, 2012), adding pressure to bring even more profit to investors through its advertising functions. This changed the architecture of the platform, and shifted its focus towards storytelling and narrative self-presentation, for which the platform served as a tool (van Dijck, 2013). In so doing, this created an attention economy focusing on brands, and turned data (especially information about personal preferences manifesting through social media behavior) into capital. In online communication, the role of Facebook is conflicting. It has been subject to criticism in several controversies. The Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal in 2018 involved the data of millions of Facebook users' friends being collected for targeting political marketing, without the consent of the users (Chan, 2019; Kreiss & McGregor, 2019; Metcalf & Fiesler, 2018). Data was also collected from the friends of those participating who had given their consent. The case went to trial, and the CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned in front of Congress. Facebook later made several reforms and applied the EU's GDPR to all operational areas of the member states. They also established Social Science One (2021) to support research on the platform. But regardless of the scandal, Facebook's revenue continued to rise in the long-term, but movement against the company grew. Cases of political manipulation have also been raised in major political cases such as the 2016 US Presidential Elections (Linvill & Warren, 2020; Linvill et al., 2019), inviting more criticism to the platform. In addition to this, harmful content, fake 66 Acta Wasaensia news, self-esteem issues, and other mental health topics are often attached to the list of criticism concerning Facebook. Facebook is easily accessible, both to political candidates and the public. However, gaining followers on Facebook is easier for candidates with an already established and considerable exposure. More active and dominant political actors also have more content to work with on content-demanding forums such as Facebook (Lev- On & Haleva-Amir, 2016). Strandberg and Borg (2020: 107) view it as a useful forum for political influence for those constituents who are seeking social connections from social media. However, for news and information content, its value has been debated. Boukes (2019) argues that more frequent Facebook usage causes a decline in knowledge acquisition, while the effect is reversed with Twitter usage. This effect was seen to be even more substantial with those who had no political interest, which widens the knowledge gap. Also, van Erkel and Van Aelst (2020) conclude a negative correlation between political knowledge and following the news on Facebook, and Van Dalen et al. (2015) point out that the content regarding political topic issues is so far limited on the platform. In online political communication, campaigns are run, and politicians share information and promote themselves. In this additional and parallel public sphere (see Habermas, 1989; Lagos, Coopman & Tomhaave, 2013), citizens discuss and assess the candidates and topic issues, but not without the political actors, who control their own profiles. Political opinions form, persuasion and argumentation is central, and personalities are built through and in interaction with the public. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 208) call this a privlic or private-public space. This term is suitable for platforms such as Facebook where usernames and other types of authentication are required, but the platform is nevertheless accessible to the public. In Facebook, most content is available to its users, even though some are limited to specific groups based on privacy settings that the users define. Ridell (2011: 18) divides the content production to inner and outer publics, based on whether the content is meant for a more secluded group of friends or the wide public. In the Finnish parliamentary election of 2015, Facebook was mainly used for formal advertising and campaign trail updates, rather than sharing political topic messages (Nelimarkka et al., 2020). However, candidates found it challenging to state opinions or participate in discussions on Facebook (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 309–310). A similar reluctancy to engage with Facebook activity and its forced feel for politicians has previously been reported by Reunanen and Harju (2012: 135). Therefore, dialogue and interaction are elements that are often lacking from the Facebook communication of politicians. Nelimarkka et al. (2020) suggest that Acta Wasaensia 67 candidates who are reluctant to participate in the societal discussion should actually refrain from Twitter and turn to Facebook, which is more traditional as a campaign platform. Even though many studies have concluded that most candidates use social media channels like Twitter and Facebook mostly for one- way information sharing (e.g. Graham et al., 2013; Farkas & Schwartz, 2018), by browsing through political profile pages and discussions under political issue related hashtags, it is possible to recognize patterns of interaction between the public and politicians. Mattila et al. (2020: 61–63) conclude that in the election of 2019, candidates estimated Facebook as their most important campaigning platform, where over two-thirds of the candidates valued it either as ‘most important’ or as ‘very important’ for their campaign communications. Only 8 % of the candidates did not include Facebook in their campaign platforms. In their analysis, the researchers also found that a lack of a digital campaign produced a bad campaign result, and a versatile combination of traditional and digital campaign communication and a focused digital campaign resulted in a better likelihood to get enough votes to get into parliament. It was also seen that candidates who were already in parliament were executing more versatile campaign communications than their contenders. In the 2019 election, 26 % of the Finnish constituents used social media to follow election communication (Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 112–113). Simultaneously, candidate selection engines and websites for broadcasting companies were considered as the most important information sources. The same year in the US, 69% of the voting-age population were seen to use Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2019). In Finland in 2015, Facebook was the most popular social media platform, with 56% of Finnish people using it (Yleisradio, 2015). Even though no research has been conducted on how many people in Finland follow campaigns particularly through Facebook, the parties and candidates have noted its significance. Most candidates have pages on Facebook, and most of them actively communicate there. Furthermore, 82% of voters under the age of 25 years regard social media as an important factor in their voting decisions (Strandberg & Borg, 2020: 115), and this should be considered when planning campaign communications for that particular demographic sector. Facebook cannot be approached only as a platform for communication. The logic used by Facebook can also be regarded as an organizational and individual tool for strategic communication practices. Studies like that of Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013) suggest that political parties can benefit greatly in their vote shares from campaigning on social media. Facebook has the largest number of users, but most research in political communication is focused on Twitter (Blank, Graham & 68 Acta Wasaensia Calvino, 2018; Casero-Ripollés, 2018; Evans et al., 2017; Graham et al., 2013; Jürgens & Jungherr, 2016; Karlsen & Enroljas, 2016; Larsson, 2017; Marttila et al., 2016; Nulty et al., 2016; Obholzer & Daniel, 2016), where research design and data collection have been seen to be more straightforward. This study fills the Finnish Facebook research gap contributing beneficial information for all actors involved in political communication. Because Facebook has become embedded in political life with communication agencies and politicians utilizing it as a tool, its research has become increasingly relevant (Carlisle & Patton, 2013), and even crucial for understanding everyday political communication. In Facebook research, this study combines what Rogers (2019) refers to as the first and third waves of Facebook studies. The first wave between 2006-2011 focused on studying the presentation of self and the content of profile pages. The current third wave started in 2016, focusing on studying fake news, influencing campaigning, and studies of pages and memes. This study focuses on election campaigns, influencing through posts, the representation of self online, and online discussion, yet the measurements for studying campaign communication in Facebook and the significance of the actions carried out are still undeveloped. The next section focuses on the possibilities of Facebook, and particularly how its affordances determine how political candidates can utilize the platform as a tool for their campaign communication. 2.4.2! Facebook functions Several functions of Facebook resemble how communication is organized in real life (Ridell, 2011: 18). In Facebook, online discussions happen through groups organized around different interests, such as towns or other communities. Another form is the discussion that forms in posts on the public pages of celebrities, organizations, or other brands. This discussion consists of posts and comments, and also reactions to those posts. The comments are formed either by people following or liking the page (and thereby seeing the content), or by someone getting the post and its comments on their feed through either sponsored post- activity or organic reach which happens when a contact shares, tags or reacts to a post. However, the latter type of reach can be seen as annoying because people see content that they have not chosen to see, for example by liking or following the page. As Bossetta (2018) states, each platform has unique functions and algorithms, so campaigning strategies must be planned accordingly. The analysis on the US 2016 election by Bossetta declares Facebook as "most attractive social media for political campaigns on account of several architectural design features." Facebook allows Acta Wasaensia 69 several functions like hyperlinking, multitype content, mobilizing audiences, and an open network structure with possibilities for efficient resource allocation. This, according to Ridell (2011: 227), creates a double role for its users where they are both interactors and performers in the wide publicity of the platform. In this study, affordance theory is applied with the focus on factors that serve the candidates as tools. Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013) have recognized three factors that can be regarded as Facebook affordances for political parties. These are the promotion and facilitation of direct communication, expressing authenticity based on the informality of the platform, and building interaction and participation with the dynamic interaction and relationship of constituents and parties. Because the application of affordances in this study requires an introduction to brands, these will be combined and explained in chapter 3.4. There, I will present a version modified for this study from the party-focused model by Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013) for affordances, in order to present Facebook affordances for politicians' personal brands. However, here, I will briefly present the basic functions that can be used for candidate-public interaction in Facebook. Before Facebook, there were several popular discussion forums. In Finland, one of the most popular in terms of user and post numbers was Suomi24. However, its site engagement with people has changed, and in 2018, while people still visit the site (possibly from search engines), they do not actively follow and post there (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 14). This type of behavior also fits well with how Facebook works. Newsfeed rolls down, comments are seen, maybe a reaction is given, but only a limited number of users engage in actual long discussions. However, some participate in lengthy debates through different groups or even on individual posts shared by users. More often, though, a user might post a comment, and never come back to the discussion to follow the reactions or replies. As a further consideration, this non-chronological archive is not organized by topic, and a changing layout offers challenges to carrying out research on Facebook discussions (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 200), along with the non-conversative nature of the comment threads. The users can also engage with Facebook posts by reacting through reactions, comments, and shares. But clearly they have different motives for engaging with a particular candidate or their posts (Gerodimus & Justinusssen, 2015), and that engagement depends on the general political attitude of the individual, their approach to social media, the general context of a specific message, and the current context such as the mood or personal issues of the constituent. 70 Acta Wasaensia The post reactions available in Facebook during data collection were the “like”, “love”, “amazement”/“wow”, “laughter”, “sad face”, and “anger” icons. However, these change from time to time. Hayes, Carr and Wohn (2016) consider these as single click cues that users can utilize to express both their relation and feeling to both the sender of the message and the content. This refers to the easy and fast way of communication that these reaction buttons allow. Reactions can encourage wider communication since it is easier to click a reaction instead of typing a message, mainly since many use Facebook on a mobile device with no physical keyboard. However, these reactions can easily cause misinterpretations because, for example, laughter (:D) as a reaction is used for different situations, such as when someone is told they are being really funny, when someone is reacted to for being ridiculous, or when someone wants to express more considerable happiness than a basic smile (!). Campaign discussions on Facebook are organized according to the various possibilities of the platform. There are groups devoted to political discussion or particular parties, for example, the support groups of candidates. Also, during elections, different groups organized around hobbies or lifestyle get their fair share of public campaign discussion, unless the group has limited politics out of its topics for discussion. Even in this case, moderation is often needed with the electorate seeking outlets to question, vent, and comment on election issues and candidates. However, these closed groups are often limited from a research perspective because of privacy settings and ethical considerations. Therefore, one way to research and understand online discussions is to look at the discussions forming on public pages and their comment threads, as in this study. For companies, public people, and even products and brands, Facebook has the function of public pages. These highlight the performance aspect always present in communication on the platform (Ridell, 2011: 18). In political communication, parties and candidates have started to use this page-function to promote their political agenda, interact with the public, and support their campaign activities. These pages are the focus of this study. They are free to open and use, but they can also be used with the Facebook marketing functions, where different types of paid ads can be targeted to the public. The pages connect to the public through the follower function, and followers may then be more likely see the page posts on their own feed. This publicity is directly affected by the Facebook algorithm, giving more extensive exposure to posts that receive more comments and reactions. The public react to the posts with comments, shares, and reactions, and these form the campaign discussion or present individual bursts of concern, support, and policy debate. They can also be used as broadcast media topics, and journalists reference them when looking for news during the campaign (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 310). Acta Wasaensia 71 Facebook is a relevant example for studying social media comments, because the public page admins cannot disable commenting, so either the page needs to be moderated or left to reveal all of its discussions (Chan, 2018). This promotes the users to express themselves freely, and if there is moderation, they also express possible frustration because users expect full freedom of expression on Facebook. 2.4.3! Facebook Public Page and Feed Politicians manage their self-representation on Facebook public pages which offer a politician-profile. These are required in case they want to utilize the paid advertising function. Individual campaign pages increase the visibility of candidates and add possibilities to manage their personal brands by choosing what to post and discuss. An example of a politician’s page is presented in Figure 7. The figure portrays a profile picture, and when the feed is scrolled down, it reveals posts and their reactions and comments. In the example, a post with several photos in it from the last day of the campaign is visible. This is a typical presentation of the candidate’s page to anyone opening it. If a post would show up on the person’s newsfeed, it would not include the sidebar with the candidate’s photo on the left. Only the latest written comments would be visible under the post, and others could be revealed by clicking the “show more comments” function. 72 Acta Wasaensia Figure 7. Example page outlook and post from candidate Pekka Haavisto On the sidebar, there is an ‘About’ page that can be opened which is presented in Figure 8. It shows what the candidate has decided to disclose in the additional questions that the person can either answer or leave unanswered. For example, these are their birth date, interests like favorite books or television shows, and favorite quotations. The person can also attach their other social media accounts like Twitter and Instagram and their profile names to this page, or include a link to their website. However, the candidate's page feed needs to be viewed as more relevant in terms of personal brand construction, because only a limited number of people click themselves to additional pages, and most of the public only views the posts and latest comments that appear on their newsfeed. Acta Wasaensia 73 Figure 8. Example ‘About’ page of a politician A social media profile is a collection of different media objects. It is a presentation built of images, personal information, videos, texts, and networks. It shows the person’s connections to the environment, their location, attitudes, and interests. These profiles can be very intimate, professional, official, funny, or a combination of everything, depending on the user and their aims in producing content and constructing their personal brand online. But regardless of what elements it includes, it is a channel and a context-specific representation managed by the individual or other people selected for the task. However, there are connections, people commenting and engaging with the profile, that affect and add elements. Next, I will explain how this persona-representation relates to the concepts of identity, persona and brand in this study, and elaborate on what kind of representations politicians have in social media. I will also characterize the affordances of Facebook for brand construction, as analyzed in this study. 74 Acta Wasaensia 3! POLITICIAN’S BRANDS AND PERSONAS Politics has always attracted individuals who are charismatic, great communicators (Herkman, 2011: 31; Railo et al., 2016: 321), and possess good social skills. According to Herkman (2011: 15, 97–98), the focus on entertainment and commercialization has reduced the interest in party politics, thereby increasing the attention given to individual politicians. Pernaa, Niemi and Pitkänen (2009) argue that the importance placed on the image of the politician in the Finnish parliamentary elections of 2007 has added pressure on their self- representation. While the commercialization of politics focuses on faces that sell, the television culture promotes those who have charisma and an appealing appearance (Railo et al., 2016: 319, 321). As outlined in Chapter 2, social media serves the politicians who can communicate, provoke feelings, tell stories, and utilize the technological possibilities at hand (i.e., the affordances of the platform) to their benefit. The significance of online discussion and managing their self- representation on social media platforms is vital for their impression management. Especially, this creates engagement, which as the core of social media, guarantees exposure and visibility for politicians and their ideas. An individual has an identity that can be seen as a process where the identity transforms and the individual evolves (Giddens, 1991: 5, 1995; Gauntlett 2008: 98–114; Bauman, 2009a). What the individual chooses to present publicly becomes the persona – i.e. the self-representation of the individual, contingent on the aim and dependent on the environment, the audience, and the timing (van Dijck, 2013). When that persona is represented with an idea of a ‘sellable self’ constructed for the public, the persona represents this individual's personal brand. This idea is expanded on in this chapter. My approach to the concept of personal brand and its connection with the ideas of persona and identity is presented in Figure 9. The personal brand of a politician is understood in this study as the colloquial term used for politician's persona – especially their public self-representation with a focus on Facebook as platform for its construction. A brand is an especially fitting term when describing a situation where active social selling and influencing in social media is performed, for example during political campaigns. Figure 9 shows how identity forms a base for different representations of the persona. From these, its subcategories such as online persona and political online persona emerge. A politician's online persona specifies their professional role and can be conceptualized as a subcategory of online persona and persona, which stem from online identity and identity. Acta Wasaensia 75 Figure 9. Personal brand of a politician in relation to persona and identity Since the knowledge surrounding the concept of a politicians personal brand and the research related to it is limited, I have explored a variety of disciplines, drawing from concepts related to identity, so as to get an idea of what a politician’s personal brand is, and how it can be characterized, researched, and evaluated. This chapter follows my steps for this. I start from the concept of identity in section 3.1, outlining how identity as a concept and the significance of identity have changed. As several works published before 2010 refer to identity even when discussing public representations and other ideas more relevant with persona, my discussion between these terms and my own concept formation moves between the two terms. In section 3.2 I continue to a more precise ideas of a political persona and a publicly presented self, where I root this study to persona studies, a relatively young yet important research field due to the growing importance of self-representation. In section 3.3 I discuss personal brand in relation to politicians and their challenges in defining the private while having such a public role in society. The dimensions of private and public in relation to a politician's persona and the public nature of their roles are explained, together with a discussion of how this connects to celebrity and added recognition. Section 3.5 outlines how these concepts are used in this study. 3.1! Identity as a Base for Persona Identity forms the base for and from which the construction of persona starts. For Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 31–34), the concept of persona is related to how in sociology, Goffman (1959: 14–16, 27) has discussed the "presentation of !"#$%&%' !"#$%$&'#( )*+,"-'#( .+'-/ !"#$%&'()*#'&+)%,)')-%(./.0.'& ($)&$#* !"#$%&%' +#,-.$/ 1&(.&") !"#$%&' !"#$%$&'#("-#$-*( )*+,"-' 76 Acta Wasaensia self". The construction of the persona can be seen in Goffman's explanation of impression management. Similar ideas about identity being a production up for choice and debate are forwarded by Giddens (1995), and the concerns of a loss of authenticity by Melosik (2009) also describe persona, rather than identity. Chapter 2 considered how this impression management takes place in online discussions and on different platforms. Particularly, social rituals are part of impression management, referring to "what is given and what is given off" as a means of presenting self, thereby constructing an identity. With the expression of ‘giving’, Goffman (1959) refers to communication in a narrow sense of verbal symbols or their substitutes, whereas ‘giving off’ describes additional non-verbal misinformation, things, and actions that are not expected. These are reflections of status-related acts of communication. The philosophical foundations for self as a thinking identity (see Descartes, 1994) continue in all developments about the concept of self, and Miller (2011: 160) reminds us that self is both temporary and continuously forming. Identities are also continually formed (Isin & Wood, 1999) and renegotiated, thus making them process-like (Butler, 1999). When enacted through performativity in public, the private self becomes a persona, which is also affected by interaction with others over time. Persona can, to some extent, be reshaped through changing actions or choosing what to share publicly (Moje & Luke, 2009; Enli & Skogerbø, 2013), even changing platforms, and can thus be managed in the way Goffman (1959) suggests. Whether we consider the self as something attached to the physical body or as something built on an image, how one expresses themselves is typically a conscious decision, but can also happen accidentally. Another essential notion on identity is argued by Hall (1994), in that to have something as an identity, an opposite is needed. So for example, to call someone old, a notion of young is needed. Identity is often constructed through separating oneself from others by noting contrasts and differences (Melchior, 2009: 105–113; Miller, 2011: 160; Paulgaard, 2001; Szkudlarek, 2009: 87–103). Distinguishing oneself from others, noting differences, and separating one's identity in terms of personal, social, and cultural terms is central to the concept of identity. This distinguished self is consequently a base for the notion that brands have something that separates them from other similar actors. Different roles and identities compose the several ‘selves’ of an individual. Identity has been used to being defined by a few primary attributes like nationality, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, gender, and familial (Smith, 1991; Smith, 2009). However, these are starting to diminish and have even become difficult to define as citizens in the global world refuse to be defined by them, thus challenging their Acta Wasaensia 77 traditional contexts. Furthermore, for example, citizenship does not necessarily define an individual's culture, so identity is thus relational, and the idea of fixed identities has been abandoned (Isin & Wood, 1999: 17, 160–161). To Gauntlett (2008), there is no definitive list of things constructing an individual's identity, and preferable is a set of "biographical narratives" that can include gender, sexuality, lifestyle, body and agency, intimacy and relationships, life story, personality, or traditions. However, as Gauntlett argues, many of these are changing, and their significance is declining. Isin and Wood (1999) also support the transforming nature of identity. To them, identity is rather a transforming construct of an individual's values, communities, and groups they belong to, but at the same time, there are specific permanent and stable attributes and qualities constructing the identity. In this way, identity is similarly affected by the environment as is persona. Thus, it is not just public representations that may fluctuate, but also identities. The challenge with identity is that it is an individualistic concept, purely dependent on interpretation and emphasizing things placed in it by the individual. For example, national identity can refer to a political community, social space, patria, citizenship, shared values, traditions, or a common economy (Smith, 2001: 9–14). Definition through many of these latter attributes is becoming more challenging, with the growth of multicultural countries and global economies. Gauntlett (2002: 13) also reminds us that identities are "complex constructions". For example, gender is only one aspect of a sense of self or identity, and some of these aspects have more significance than others. For example, ethnicity may or may not be more relevant than national identity. Changes in external circumstances and factors like education, residency, cultural background, access to communications, or social status, might change a particular aspect's emphasis or influence. Gauntlett (2002) suggests that the physical body is less significant to identity, however, this may also have changed, as for example in regard to personal trainers, models, or others whose professional identity, physical performance, and outlook are the base of their persona. Ultimately, it can be said that our perception of someone's identity is highly dependent on the persona they decide to construct and their impression management. Thus, presentation and appearance do in fact matter, and they create perceptions regardless of whatever else there is. Skeggs (2008) positions identity as "a category, a social position, and an affect". While identity is always constructed through history, geography, biology, institutions, memory, fantasies, power, status, and religion, identity primarily lasts through time and space and is self-sustaining. People organize their cultural material based on their environment, their individual understanding, and the different needs set by society and themselves (Kempny & Jawlowska, 2002: 7, 78 Acta Wasaensia 360). Identities stretch through all areas of life, which gives them much power in societies. Nguyet Erni (2008: 193–197) makes a compelling case by separating the discussion of identities from theorization, with the explanation that they should be considered in terms of operation/operationality as they are actual and actualizing entities. Leading from this, when trying to conceptualize identities; identities should not be considered as a set of categories like gender, class, ethnicity, but instead turned to as a result of an active and acknowledged process of giving meaning, valuing self, and representing an individual and their relation to others. Entrepreneurs use their identities and personalities to brand themselves and their products as more vital (Iso-Berg 2015). Identities are used for branding because they help to connect with customers, and in politics, identities can help to relate to constituents, show the human aspect in the middle of political issues, and create personal value for the voter. The roles and power of celebrities and fans have changed with the rise of new types of celebrities. These recognized personas or reality television stars may come from modest backgrounds and handle the "celebrity game" through their authentic personas, instead of ones built by a team of professionals or a recording studio team. Lin (2008: 1, 3) suggests that the rich and the powerful dominate the identity game as they have more capital to maintain advantageous identities. Lin (2008: 3) describes identity work as "Linguistic, discursive, institutional, and cultural processes of fixing/essentializing identities and subject positions while constructing multiple, mobile, fluid, favorable identities and subject positions for selves, attributing and reproducing privilege and positive (moral) values to these subject positions." In addition to their nature as processes, personas are tied with their collectives, together with the way they are negotiated and their context. But instead of the identity game that Lin’s “constructed identities” play in these public representations; when considering the well-known political individuals who also have an audience creating meanings and constructing their personas, we should perhaps turn to examining persona and impression management. 3.1.1! Identity as a process Elliot and du Gay (2009) turn the focus towards changes in the notion of identity. They describe 'Postmodern identity' as most widely used in social theory, referring to phenomena like the crisis of masculinity and the increased use of mobile phones. For them, this "Involves the deconstruction and reconstruction of the self as fluid, fragmented, discontinuous, decentered, dispersed, culturally eclectic, hybrid-like...". The postmodern definition of identity takes it closer to the definition of persona and the approach taken in this study. As described by Acta Wasaensia 79 Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 31), the term persona identity seems fitting to define this action as a performance, including various scripted selves dependent on environment and motives, and almost like role-play. Identity may still be more constant, but the public representations it manifests in different roles and environments – the persona – gives opportunities to build a new self from scratch, to hide the old, and offer new representations for each new situation and time. Because identity work is a process, these alterations in the construction of persona are easier to understand. While an individual constructs their concept of self continually as a process, its public representation also becomes a process. Bauman (2009a) highlights this decentralized nature of self, and describes identity as "episodic and brittle". The term identity refers to identification, and to the process of how people see themselves and portray themselves to others (Aresta et al., 2015), and to the concept people construct of themselves. Bauman (2009b: 19–30) also uses the term identification instead of referring to identity when discussing changes in attitudes. Changes necessarily require cutting some ties, and this plurality of roles can be defined by separating roles and identities: "Identities organize the meaning while roles organize the functions." (Kempny & Jawlowska, 2002: 7) Identity is often defined in reference to three groups: individuals, collectives, and the relationship between the two (Giddens, 1995: 7–10). In their own political groups, politicians are different from when at home with their family and close friends. There can be overlapping similarities, but different things are given more emphasis, and different attributes are more present. Thus, different personas show different elements of their identities and are designed for presenting intended roles, like that of a professional politician. Personas can also develop their values and opinions when they learn more about issues and build new networks, and this type of transformation in perspective and emphasis also highlights the idea of the fluidity of identities. If identities are viewed as a process, they are more transformable and changing than ever before (Gauntlett, 2008: 98–114, 245–247). In representation, they may vary across platforms. Their nature becomes more layer-like, as online, there is a digital archive of an individual's actions which can be accessed at any time (boyd, 2014: 33) when identities are turned into personas in and for public negotiation. The conversations stay present, so there is a record of opinions. For example, a politician who changes their political party or re-determines their values is always shutting something away or turning their back on something else. This kind of inclusion and exclusion is essential in the construction of personas and brands. With the choice to represent something comes the choice of not to represent something else. This also supports Hall’s (1994) notion of the requirement for 80 Acta Wasaensia opposites. In relation to this, Bauman (2009b: 19–30) reminds us that while identity involves private choices, it can soon become tied with collective groups and so become a master of many. Identities are often valued and fixed in collectives, but individuals have a strong aim to change and move forward. This supports Beck, Gidden and Lash’s (2009) view on constantly re-envisioning and re-negotiating self. This leads to disposable identities rather than the layer formation that was first described. However, the archive-nature of social media content challenges this. The fluidity of identities and the decline of tradition are evident with mass media as the driving force of change, and with increased communication and knowledge, there is more space for a greater diversity of identities (Gauntlett, 2002: 247–249; Kempny & Jawlowska, 2002: 3). People have and make more available choices for their self- representations. Understanding identity and later performing it as a persona has become an acknowledged act requiring planning and execution, based on the analysis of the surrounding world. As Gauntlett (2002) suggests: "your life is a project", and Giddens (1991: 5) also proposes the individual self as a 'reflexive project', where continuous reflection and revision exist. Thus, multiple roles are played and these can even be played at the same time. Bauman's (2009a: 1–12) idea of choosing identities and being ready for new choices describes the professional self that politicians need to represent. As Miller (2011: 161) reminds us, identities are "contingent upon time and place". Their relational nature (Ibid. 161) comes specifically true in online representations which are often less spontaneous. Here, the ideas are disposable, values can be replaced, and the persona can be negotiated multiple times and in multiple ways. This negotiation is a choice (Wood & Smith, 2005: 51–57, 60), and lately, for example, party identities have been changed as several politicians have switched parties. The core identity of a politician is thus not defined by the party. Rather, party identification is representative, and thus party identifications are disposable because they can be adopted through other party memberships. Therefore, it is not specifically an identity question. So should identity be understood as a stable core of self that does not transform but only consists of things that stay constant, regardless of whether the person changes their values, looks, nationality, gender, etc., and does that sort of constant exist? O'Brien (2009: 33–39) contests the idea of fluidity with cultural concept examples, offering stereotypes that stay regardless of changing times, such as an example of Irishmen considered as drinking heavily no matter what they do. Some identities stick, and a Finnish example of this would be the idea of silent Finns who do not show emotion. Acta Wasaensia 81 In the public presentation of identities, communication is vital. Identities are represented, negotiated, and valued through communicative acts. A persona is always layered, and new presentations build on top of former ones. A new approach to the subject is the effect of interaction. Identity building can happen "through the interaction of language, culture, history, and territory, with the ability of integration, cooperation, and networking" (Tubella, 2004: 385–398). A politician can almost seem to be different depending on which context he is viewed in, because as Goffman (1989) states, identities are dependent on the surrounding time and place. Politicians build their personas on already existing party values and symbolism, so certain expectations are based on the parties they belong to. Also, they are influenced by media because it naturally influences and changes our perception of ourselves and others. While people do not necessarily think that media influences their own identities, it nevertheless provides narrative frames and stories that are used as mirrors and platforms for constructing identities and later personas (Gauntlett, 2008: 253–268). Initially, Frosh and Baraitser (2009: 158–168) view identity as a concept referring to the physical body and parental identification, but also turn the focus to new contexts and experiences, adding an emotional aspect to the sense of identity. Paulgaard (2001) suggests that the online context changes the idea of identity belonging to a particular place, because online, people have total freedom to negotiate their identity into a persona independent from physical boundaries. According to van Dijck, Powell and de Waal (2018), platforms like Facebook support having one transparent identity that is negotiated online through collectives. In this, identity is expressed collectively through self-presentations and interpretation, thus forming a persona. When describing identity as an ongoing process (Miller, 2011: 161), a more appropriate concept is that of persona which describes the planned and context- adjusted nature of the process-like self. Even though personas can adjust to different contexts, as brands, these public representations require stability because they are effectually customer promises. Therefore, while they negotiate meanings, they are ultimately constructed by finding constant elements. Unlike personas, identities are ascribed, not chosen. Moreover, they are fundamental to the subject rather than something that can be spontaneously changed and decided, at least in the way that individuals perceive them. This contradicts viewing identity as a performance (Goffman, 1959; Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 31), hence steering the idea of being chosen and describing what can be explained with the term persona. When we consider public arenas, instead of focusing on identity as a process, we should consider as representations of self which are always 82 Acta Wasaensia reassessed and represented. In the online context, they are also referred to as online identity. 3.1.2! Online identity as self-determined representation The dynamic nature of the online world and especially social media challenges campaign activities to find the right channels and ways to get their message through (boyd 2014: 39–40). Papacharissi (2013: 207–218) views technology as a stage for the interaction where individuals transform and present themselves to multiple audiences. This "identity negotiation" is therefore simply staged in a new setting when it happens online. The ideas of boyd (2014: 49) set these negotiations to profiles where online personas are negotiated. In these, self-representation can vary depending on the context and the imagined audience, thus creating a collection of self-representations. The permanent nature of digital prints like online discussions needs to be remembered when personas are re-negotiated, as content is easy to find and copy. Different channels online are used differently, but certain principles stay the same (boyd, 2014: 5, 38). Our communication in real life remains within a small circle in most life interactions, and it is not saved in any files. But this changes online. Our actions are not only saved, but they can be looked at repeatedly even decades after the communication has taken place. This changes the way our identities are both formed and looked at. Our opinions, statements, participation and expertise follow us, and construct our identities. For a politician, this means that political ideas are tougher to change, and there is a possibility of older material reaching the electorate, rather than current opinions getting through. The self can be different when looking at reality, hopes, the past, and the future (Arestra et al., 2015). The elements constructing one's online identity are permanent, but the value and weight placed upon them change as new elements come to the picture (boyd, 2014: 33). Previous statements, acts and networks influence the current perceptions, and both the past and the present influence the future. Given that persona negotiation can be done for specific purposes (like campaigning), it is modeled depending on the instrument in use, the targeted audience, and the specific aim (Keipi et al., 2017: 19, 22, 29). Thus, the comment of boyd (2014: 40) of "Separate context - and thus a separate digital persona" refers to this dilemma of even changing personas, and how they are negotiated on different platforms and for different contexts. Feher (2015) uses the term self-determined digital identity when referring to online identity. This term is apt, and online, individuals choose which elements of their identity to share, hide and emphasize (Aresta et al., 2015; Weinstein, 2014) Acta Wasaensia 83 even more than in reality. So, users in fact determine their own identity in this context, thus defining their self-representation. However, as described in section 2.3, even though online identity can be controlled and carried through by one's actions, like blogging and social networking, this is not always the case since, especially with celebrities and politicians, the audience is also an actor in the process (Kannasto, 2020). People and their actions are discussed online in several networks, and this discussion subsequently affects the way others view them (see Dutta, 2010; Harris & Rae, 2011; Labrecque, Markos & Milne, 2011). But this has more to do with their brand or the actively sold self, which some argue that self- representation and the publicly presented self always is. This is further deliberated in the analysis by including the audience as an active actor in the process of persona negotiation. In some contexts, online identity is referred to as concerning online privacy through, for example, the issue of identity theft. However, this context falls outside the bounds of this study. Here, online identity is understood as the representation of self that one creates collectively through online networks with different actions online, sic., the digital representation of a person (Aresta et al., 2013; Milne, Rohm & Bahl, 2004; Williams, 2016; Wood & Smith, 2005: 68–72). In relation to a text-based virtual world and peoples' embodiment in text, Sundén (2003) argued people are "typing themselves into being". Sundén's idea describes the difference between an individual's online and real-life self, and could be applied to online identities. This separation is even more manifested in the difference between a private Facebook profile versus a public page. Followers can get a sense of friendship with the page owner by getting their content first and having this direct route to them, thus forgetting that a page is a strategically constructed public representation of self, and not the private person. Östman (2015) also discusses this through the concept of life-publishing, as a situation where individuals use several platforms to build their identities and make their private life public. These are constructed for an audience, but invisible audiences cannot all be considered (Aresta et al., 2015; boyd, 2008). Warnick (2007) and Thumim (2012) also remind us that this is rarely spontaneous nor completely honest in the case of politicians, and seldom an independent action. Individuals can create and transform their online identities with their choice of online platforms and the possibilities they offer (Aresta et al., 2015). This is not necessarily impossible for an unknown person. However, in the case of celebrities and politicians, their real characters need to be similar to their online identities as a lot of their activity also happens in real life and is dependent on their genuine identities. A more extensive reinvention of self is also challenged by a previous 84 Acta Wasaensia public representation of self. In real life, identity is the actual view of the person himself (Gauntlett, 2008: 100), but online, that truth is even more about what is perceived and negotiated by others. Also, online the body or physical features as part of an individual's identity can be meaningless (Shvets, Luzyanina & Maximova, 2001). Researching text-based internet before the WWW, Turkle (1995) argues that on the internet, people create their presence consciously, and often in this creation process, they consciously make themselves better. Chatrooms and websites allow representations through avatars, as well as various styles of communication. Before social media, in 2005, Wood and Smith (2005) viewed control as the main motivation for adopting roles online. But after the popularity of fluctuating representations, a call for authenticity grew online. However, alternative online roles and representations still take place in online roleplay, where avatars are used in virtual game environments. These avatars are, in practice, experiments of identity, and stories rather than presentations of identity, so reinforcing the earlier view of Turkle (1995: 180) who fittingly calls the internet "a significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self". When the public or other media create the presence, the representations are not necessarily better versions. Online identity is thus a collection of layers that can be recreated continuously, without the previous layers losing their existence. This archive nature of online content is also noted by boyd (2014: 33), and online identity is the sum of all the content available online of the individual, which can be created by the individual, other media and institutions, or in public discussion by private people. This can further be conscious or accidental, so avoiding creating some kind of an online identity nowadays is nearly impossible (Aresta et al., 2015). As I described the role of the public in disrupting communications in section 2.2.2 with regard to social media, this element of control becomes partly lost. Citizen participation has become a norm (boyd, 2014: 7), so complete control of the representation of a politician from above is no longer possible. The discussion and content produced by private people and institutions add material to the politician's online identity. Online, individuals have more chances to highlight appealing traits and hide traits they do not want to appear in their persona at a given moment. However, it is unclear whether the online world provides this possibility for public personas, and public figures who are well known, such as politicians, may not have a similar degree of control as their roles and images are often constructed by others. Media and mediated negotiations of persona are always choices of what is presented, but that choice is not always entirely up to the individual in question. Acta Wasaensia 85 As Turkle (1995) and Aboujade (2001: 33) suggest, it simply gives an outlet for ideas and persona negotiation. With interesting public personas, it is more than them participating in the persona negotiation through forum discussion, and involves the comments, shares, and reactions on different profile and fan pages that come from other people. This way, not only what the person views of themselves, but also what others view of them becomes negotiated. Actual representations, the persona, and constructions of brand need to withstand time, publicity, and opposition. Persona negotiation online also needs to be coherent, even though multiple personas are affected by their network (Turkle, 1995: 255, 258). The social world is therefore not a constant operating in small networks, and a global context and broad public debate are constantly possible with social media. In this study, I argue that due to social media elements, those associations and connections are currently active actors in the construction of personas, and perhaps disturbingly, it matters who follows who, who comments or likes and what and they react to, and who shares our posts and which ones. Figure 10 presents the online identity models modified from Fraser (2009). Online identity can be personal, professional or organizational, and these can overlap. They can also be represented in different platforms, meant for specific contexts. As Figure 10 shows, personal online identities are used for social network sites connecting with friends and family through sharing photos and messaging. In these personal profiles, more private content is shared, thus making privacy a vital concern. Professional online identities are used to record and promote work achievements, create publicity for professional elements, and connect with colleagues and professional networks. When political candidates or their offices perform campaign communication online, they build both their professional identities and their brands. Sometimes this process is acknowledged and strategic, but especially early-career politicians may not have earlier considered online communication as part of their brand construction. The politician's persona is also negotiated on various platforms, and while candidates have chosen the channels they use, the public also choose the channels they use for political communication. Especially given the span and reach of online platforms and identities, representation and reputation are essential issues to consider because people are building their professional image. Lastly, online organizational identities are used to perform work duties through different channels. These can be public or within the organization, and are used within the organization's context. 86 Acta Wasaensia Figure 10. Online identity models (modified from Fraser, 2009). Different profiles and their types can vary. In the case of politicians and their online personas they develop as political personal brands, so in this research, the focus is placed on professional online representation (Fraser, 2009). As Figure 10 shows, politicians' online identities concern their reputation. Thus, they use different platforms for negotiating their political achievements, and work and build their professional networks. This does not mean that the only things referring to in a politician's online identity would be political opinions or their role as a political candidate, and political identities are constructs of an individual. However, during a campaign, candidates are always discussed as political candidates. Therefore all discussion concerning them can be viewed as part of their professional online representation, meaning it is impossible to distinguish between professional and personal content in relation to politicians. As an example, a politician or some other famous person can have a private profile, maybe even under an alias, and also a public profile. However, if this is the case, it is still nigh on impossible to maintain two completely different representations of self, especially given that private profiles can also become public through screenshots and privacy leaks. People also have their individual styles which carry through these different representations in profiles for separate contexts and uses. Thus, private and professional representations often overlap, and the individual chooses elements from one profile to display on the other, while some elements are left to construct only one specific persona. Considering multiple selves, boyd (2014) distinguishes the internalized notion of the self and projected self, where the first refers to the actual self, the identity, and projected self is the self that a !"#$%&'( !"#$%&' ()*+#,- "%*)"./ $#(()$*%#(" +%*0 1,%)(2" &(2/ 1&3%'4 !50#*# "0&,%(6./3)""&6%(6 !5,%7&$4 %35#,*&(* )#*'&+,'-+%&'( !8"%(6 $0&(()'" *#/5),1#,3 +#,- 28*%)" !589'%$./5,#3#*%#( &(2/ $#(7),"&*%#(&' 5#""%9') +&4" *#/8") !#%."$$+%&'( !8"%(6 2%11),)(* "%*)" &"/&/ ,)$#,2 1#,/+#,-./ &$0%)7)3)(*"./589'%$%*4. !"#$%&' ()*+#,- "),7%$)"./ 9'#66%(6./)!5#,*1#'%#" !,)58*&*%#( &(2/ ,)5,)")(*&*%#( %35#,*&(* !"#$ %&$'(%() !"#$"%&'(%")$)* Acta Wasaensia 87 person chooses to share. This projected self is similar to the idea of how persona is defined in this study. This term can also be implied when someone else is constructing the persona. Hence, the politician, the media and the public are all building a projected self of a political person when choosing to publish something and deciding the tone and approach for it. An overlap of terms is also seen when boyd (2014) discusses the terms self- presentation and self-representation similarly, referring to online identity in her research on the online representations of teenagers. To her, online identity is "online self-expression," and creating profiles online is part of it (boyd, 2014: 30, 49). I use Marshall, Moore and Barbour’s (2020) term ‘online representations’ in this study when referring to these intermediated presentations. Thus, personas are the public representations of self, and this study focuses on them in an online context, specifically Facebook. To Aresta et al. (2015), the online identity of an individual consists of digital representation, privacy management, and reputation. Digital representation is the content produced relating to the individual, and it consists of all the elements of an online identity. Reputation refers to the individual's intention in building their personal brand, and their motive includes the reasons behind this reputation construct. Content creation is dependent on the audience and their participation and engagement which affects how the content spreads and how much attention it gains. This can affect the way new content is developed and the style in which it is produced. Also, it can affect the online life of the content, meaning that, for example, if a fake media site is not gaining an audience, it might not stay up. All of these elements are interconnected and affect one another. Lundby (2008: 5) also referred to "self-representational digital stories" as "personal stories, told with the storyteller's own voice. They are representations in the first person." The idea that identities are stories is supported by Lundby's (2008: 9) statement that there is a degree of multimodality in the identity process. However, social media and its functioning logic have turned the focus more towards authentic personas. The negotiation of persona is more about what is revealed publicly, and not necessarily on which story is told. Also, even though false presentations are illegal on platforms, they still exist in the form of fake profiles and bots that were discussed in section 2.2.2. Some platforms allow for a minimal presentation through allowing several profiles, avatars, and unidentifiable usernames. These negotiated personas are normally constructed with a theme and design of web site, dependent on the affordances of the platform, future or imagined professions, hobbies, personal artistic, creative work, life context (pictures, hobbies, jokes, references), referent group styling (favorite band 88 Acta Wasaensia style, etc.), faith and spiritual search (rare) or different interests. Politicians might even carry distinct types of communication on Twitter rather than on Facebook. However, the present media environment is such that content overlaps between different platforms, and posts can be shared between forums, and also the audience can share content between platforms, increasing the fluidity of communication. Platform choices also set challenges to individuals due to the logic of the platform. For example, by offering the public page for candidates and declining their opportunity to advertise their campaigns through personal profiles, Facebook forces them to create a presence on a Facebook page. Online, individuals can share distinct ideas of themselves between different channels, profiles, chat rooms, or conversation forums. Bratteteig (2008: 271–281) reminds us that online, there are technological limitations on self-expression, and two-way communication changes the way self-expression is performed. The character limit on Twitter and the interaction with comments, shares and likes on Facebook are examples of this. An identity is an explanatory view that considers life, actions and influences. Online, general ways in which personality is defined do not exist or are hidden (Shvets, Luzyanina & Maximova, 2001), and this can emphasize the importance of, for example, linguistics or network in constructing an online identity. Donath (1996) states that identity plays a crucial role in understanding and evaluating interaction. Goffman (1959) also showed that information about individuals helps in defining the situation and expectations. However, online, this information is not always the defining factor. Anyone can participate in almost any group or promote individual agendas independent from their role in real life. However, it is possible to argue that this can also happen in reality. When one walks into the middle of a public place, there is not necessarily any information available as to what roles everyone has in terms of profession, social status, nationality, or gender. Aboujade (2001: 20–33) denies the authenticity of e-identity. Regardless of the abandonment of the terminology related to e-life, he describes e-identity as similar to a persona online, reflecting the dynamic process of the individual's social media profiles, networks, actions, and their life as a whole. This is something which is more extensive than its single elements combined, and even transformation or a renegotiation of self-presentation is possible. However, as discussed in section 2.2, these personas also possibly invite negative comments and possible attacks on the person involved. In the case of politics, the online discussion and reactions often collate with negative commenting and news. Social media has widened the dimension of online discussion, which can also construct brands. As the most popular social Acta Wasaensia 89 networking site, Facebook offers easy access to these discussions and an engagement with political topics and personas. This can intentionally produce false images, but more often it is about commenting, sharing, liking, and generally discussing, thereby negotiating meanings. oyd (2014: 49), other individuals affect online identities, and that: "Impression management online and off is not just an individual act; it's a social process." Online identities are personas presented in online contexts, and the public discussion online always contributes to the construction of the persona of a politician when referring to them. On Facebook, the algorithm works so that when an individual engages with a post or a page, it gets more exposure. Also, there are no restrictions except for individual moderation of specific pages, as to what kind of meanings are negotiated in and through posts, comments and reactions. This concept of persona negotiation in political campaigns is explained in the next sections. 3.2! Persona – the Public Self Identity and online identity have been explained in previous sections because they form the base for personas, and the public representations of self. These are supported through the concept of persona offered by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 2–4). As a young field of research, their first book introduces persona studies as a field where this study partly positions, and I develop their concepts in this study of politician’s personas and personal brands. The research on persona studies is limited, and the work has mostly so far been developed by these authors, so this chapter is focused on their introduction to persona studies. They begin from the idea that everyone is producing a public self, a persona, and a separate from identity, every time they are in public or at the "front of stage" as Goffman (1959) describes it. No matter how authentic or genuine, this representation is always a performance and a projection, where somethings are left out, and other things brought up. Shepherd (2005) also supports the idea of a performance as a meaningful approach to personal brands. However, he notes that personal brand construction is the deliberation that happens before the performance takes place, while I argue that the process continues when and after these persona negotiations take place. Considering personas in campaigns, what is brought front stage is what is intended to be ‘sold’ and used to convince the public. As Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 25, 32) argue, personas are constructed and planned, deliberating the audience to whom it is directed, and highlighting the idea of a sellable self which connects with personal brands. Personas are produced and presented public selves that can be different in each context and platform. Also, the traditional idea of 90 Acta Wasaensia celebrity is a subset of persona, and Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 4) point out that celebrity is connected with the media, while persona as a concept relates to what is private and public. For persona as understood as a constructed publicly represented self, the mediatized form, digital objects, conscious construction, and collective role are central considerations (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 51, 52, 98). Especially, there needs to be a medium or some platform where users can network and negotiate their personas. The actions carried out in these micro-publics develop the persona and form the ideas for its construction. While their members may be the same, some people may only be involved with one platform. Therefore, each micro-public and its audience has different types of personas that they are familiar with. Personas can be created and developed through text, pictures, videos, or other digital objects. The construction is not an accident but more a collection of deliberate actions which are sometimes performed strategically and sometimes in a shorter period of time. However, there is also an element of coincidence with brands, as these publicly represented personas are interpreted in different ways, and their exposure is partly incidental even with strategic communication. However, if each platform is considered a micro-public of its own and as a stage with its own audience, then the persona is not the sum of all these presentations but rather a combination of them (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 88). Thus, a persona can be seen as "communal". While mediatization is central in the representation of self, the concept of persona is more than just a media or online presence. This study focuses on online persona constructed in Facebook, but they can be influenced by representations outside the online world. For example, a politician's performance in a television debate or a speech in a campaign event can be discussed online, so allowing it to become part of the online persona. Persona can also be linked with celebrity, but these two concepts are not synonymous. Last, the individual and collective nature of personas is crucial, and they are negotiated within and as part of collectives. For politicians, these collectives can be parties, different interest groups, social media followers, and any other networks that they are part of. The word persona's etymology comes from a Latin word meaning the mask worn by actors in the theater (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 24–25). This ties the word to "the role, character, avatar, personage, front (Goffman, 1959), and façade". When assessing persona analytically, as with identity, it cannot be analyzed as a constant. It is a developing process where identity is represented publicly through both one’s own actions and in a collective. Persona is a production, similar to a Acta Wasaensia 91 performance, where the public have access to the person. Thus, persona as a word refers to the mask used in these performances (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 24). However, these masks may challenge the authenticity of these representations. Politicians get coaching for their performances, they plan their speeches, and communication professionals help them in producing content. This aptly describes the ideas of a mask and performance, but further underlines that in professional roles, communicative actions presented publicly are deliberate and planned, not spontaneous. Communication is central in the production of personas, and the perceptions are dependent on the content producers, the audience, and the platform of the production process (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 22). The communicative actions of politicians are dependent on their personality and capabilities, the party guidelines, and the offices working with and for them. In the next section, I will describe political personas, in relation to the considerations raised by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 190). Especially, they have developed a model of academic self, which has inspired me to suggest a model for political selves in section 3.5. 3.2.1! Politicians’ personas Turning our focus to politicians and their negotiations and production of these public selves, we start from the notion that the individuals themselves produce them. However, they can also hire agencies or PR staff to help them. Politicians often have a campaign manager, a secretary, or a press agency that constructs their persona in a professional strategic manner (Roberts, 2006: 136; McNair, 2018: 138–170). Individuals make strategic choices on their identity work, based on how their social environment receives them. These different self constructs are displayed for a particular goal or social aim (Van House, 2009). This public persona is not necessarily a completely authentic representation of self, and politicians make strategic choices on the issues that they stress in a given moment, in a specific environment, or with a particular audience. These choices can also be as conceptually trivial as to what they are going to wear on a television debate to appeal to the electorate. Meanings are constructed through cultural attributes and the purposes of individuals' actions. But it is unclear whether politicians define their own meanings and construct their personas from their identities, or rather based on what they think the audience or their party wants them to be like. For example, a politician who supports a national team in sports on their Facebook post may bring up their national identity, or perhaps establish a collective cultural identity with 92 Acta Wasaensia people who share the same interest, thus benefitting them as supporters and connections. Community building activities like mottos, organizations, or online recognition through hashtags or Facebook groups can strengthen people's need to belong to groups and communities. Professional politicians are skillful performers who have been trained by PR professionals (Enli, 2015a). The characteristics of a candidate can affect the electorate in two ways; First, people can evaluate the candidates by choosing between individuals. Second, these evaluations can affect the parties, when the party leader is significant for the party choice. Garzia (2014: 2, 80) argues that the electorate relates to parties more based on their party leaders than on social or ideological identities. The image of the party leader can then have a substantial effect on electoral decisions and the party image. The role of media is central in the shift in focus from politicians to persons in the public eye (Garzia, 2014: 85). Because of increased personal exposure, the electorate cares about and relates to individuals, and learns about them, not just their politics. There is an added public interest and exposure to the private life and personal experiences of politicians, which in Finland has been discussed as the ‘intimization’ of politics (Herkman, 2011: 97–98). As a phenomenon, it is not new and is attached to the changes that television and cultural change brought in the 1960s–1970s (Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 319). Karvonen (2009: 121) recognizes personalization in Finnish politics, but reminds us that its developments are neither fast nor dramatic. Party leaders are more significant to people when they evaluate their party choices. The numbers in personal votes among individual candidates are rising in Finnish elections, which indicates the importance of personality, being strong, standing out, and having a personal brand. The majority of voters pick specific candidates. However, Karvonen (2009: 122) emphasizes that political and ideological factors are of primary importance when choosing candidates, instead of just the people themselves. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 67–79) present five dimensions of persona which are shown in Figure 11. These are: 1. A public dimension, which is the "official version of self" offered to the public. 2. A mediatized dimension, where technology is used to present self. 3. A performative dimension that shows how individuals produce material such as comments or photos of themselves. 4. The collective dimension that describes how the persona is connected and communicates in the network. 5. The interpersonal dimension, where the audience dynamic explains how the different types of relationships are complicated by the affective bond between followers and celebrities. Acta Wasaensia 93 Figure 11. Five dimensions of persona (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 67– 79). For a politician on Facebook, the public page represents the public dimension, and shows the candidate's selected photos, their personal/professional information on the about page (see also Figure 8), their posts, and their responses to comments they have received. This is already their mediatized persona, but the candidates can also choose to link other mediatized content like videos or blogs of themselves on their page. This has to do with the performative self, involving aspects such as which style they use to write their content, how they frame their photos, and what they choose to share. The collective dimension almost resembles friendship dynamics as networks follow the guidelines of "following." This can further be explored through the interpersonal dimension, where the audience's engagement and then the responses to the audience can be analyzed. However, this interaction perspective is left out from the analysis in this study because the posts and comments are analyzed as separate texts that negotiate meanings. Thus, the persona construction addressed here is understood to be happening in a collective, but not necessarily in interaction with it. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 186–190, 201) call for more research on "the way that various professionals play in and across the public, mediatized, performative, collectively constructed, and intentional dimensions in constructing their online reconfigurations of their professional persona." They present their division of the presentation of academic personas into five types of self, as presented in Figure 12. The academic persona model provides a good starting point for analyzing politicians' personas online. So far, similar types of presentations !"#$%&'(%)*+,%-+' .*(%/0%1*('2*3,-+/' !*34-3)/0%5*'(%)*+,%-+ 6-$$*&0%5*'(%)*+,%-+ 7+0*32*3,-+/$'(%)*+,%-+ 844%&%/$'3*23*,*+0/0%-+'-4',*$4 9*&:+-$-;<'%,'",*('0-'3*23*,*+0' 2*3,-+/ =->'/+'%+(%5%("/$'23*,*+0,' )/0*3%/$'-4',*$4 6-++*&0%-+,'/+('+*0>-3?@'/+(' &-))"+%&/0%-+'>%0:'0:*) A<+/)%&'-4'0:*'/"(%*+&* 94 Acta Wasaensia have not been identified for politicians. Thus the proposed model arising from both the modification from their model and the preliminary round of data analysis is presented later in Figure 16. This is used in the analysis to find brand types of politicians as a result of this study. My application of the different ‘selves’ of politicians will be used as part of the theoretical framework in this study to answer how personas of politicians are presented online and how these manifest as their personal brands. Figure 12. Five types of academic persona (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 186–190). Five types of academic persona are presented in Figure 12. First is "the static self," where only a university bio strictly related to teaching and research is presented. The second one is the "teaching self," where the academic persona connects to students and teaching through online platforms. The "networked self" actively constructs content, and connects with other academics, engages with their content, and uses social media for professional and public profiles. A further developed blend of professional and private identity through various platforms describes the "comprehensive self". The last and the most blended version is the "uncontainable self," where the academic mixes platforms, and private, public and even intimate content without consideration. In this case, the determination of professional expertise can be unclear, however, a professional’s economic and cultural value is created through the trust they can build by constructing and conveying their professional persona (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 186). Leading from this, a political persona can be strengthened with strategic and conscious persona !"#$%&'"( )%*+,-# ./%(+0#0'"(+%12 .%#"/'-3(+%12 ./%(-%04,*5%$( +%12 6,&)*%/%-+'7%( +%12 8-",-0#'-#91%( +%12 !"#$%&'(%)*+,+"-+.%/*+,+0*12% 0".%-+012'"3%*+#0-+.4 5(""+1-'"3%-(%-+012'"3%0".% ,-6.+"-,%-2*(632%("#'"+% )#0-7(*8, 91-':+%1("-+"-%)*(.61-'("% 0".%1(""+1-'"3%)*(7+,,'("0##$ ;#+".%(7%)*(7+,,'("0#%0".% )*':0-+%'.+"-'-$%'"%.'77+*+"-% )#0-7(*8, <'=+.%)#0-7(*8,%7(*%)*':0-+% 0".%)6&#'1>%+:+"%'"-'80-+>% 6")#0""+. Acta Wasaensia 95 construction, together with firm communicative acts that generate trust towards the politician by appealing to that specific audience. While Marshall, Moore and Barbour’s (2020: 133–151) studies on personas have focused on artists (see also Preece & Kerrigan, 2015), professionals, academics, doctors and lawyers, this study elaborates their analysis on politicians. As outlined in section 2.1.2, politicians are an interesting professional group because they do not fulfill a similar definition for a professional as, for example, a doctor. Instead, they could be defined through a similar frame as athletes or the artists that feature in the work of Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 66); and accordingly, those who earn an income through their practice of politics can be referred to as professional politicians. There is a gap in research in this new field of persona study. Previous studies on political persona, especially online, have mainly been focused on the US Presidential campaigns of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama (Bostdorff, 2017; Dow, 2017; Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015; Nai & Maier, 2018; Ross & Rivers, 2020; Sahly, Shao & Kwon, 2019). Contrastingly, this study brings new information in the Nordic context on politicians' personal brands that are not necessarily globally known, but still important in a national context. However, taking this approach to political personas, looking at them as a more general approach to personal brands, and conducting research on them will be beneficial for any professional considering branding their role. Therefore, considering the categories of the types of academic persona, in my final discussion I suggest a model for types of politicians’ personal brands that are presented online. But before I go into my model and bring the concepts of identity, persona and personal brand together, I will discuss personas in relation to campaigns and what is considered essential 3.2.2! Personas in campaigns Rogers (2015: 2) highlights the importance of outstanding people in campaigns. He also states that astute and effective communications are essential for a campaign to succeed. For him, a great campaign needs the following features: "Clear vision, a unified team and authenticity, a PR-led strategy and consistent narrative, a collaborative rather than adversarial approach to media, forging friendships and breaking down barriers, embracing the evolving concept of celebrity, integrity, and purpose, building genuine movements, optimizing digital technologies, convergence and integration, leadership, storytelling, and creative flair" (Ibid. 198–207). 96 Acta Wasaensia When a persona is sold through communicative acts to the public in situations such as campaigns, it becomes a personal brand. The features outlined by Rogers (2015) are related to the construction of brands and dealing with personas, before, during, and after a political campaign. These attributes and their mastering would constitute a successful personal brand for a politician that the public engages with and votes for. As I have argued, coincidence is also involved, but nevertheless, polishing the required elements is a good start in the negotiation of persona. Enli (2015a; 2015b) argues that authenticity can also be a production, i.e. the illusion of authenticity. Politicians are not required to show anything and everything in their lives. Rather they are expected to be genuine, trustworthy, and true to the party. Success is not made alone, and a strong team with strategic aims is required to succeed in a campaign. While there are candidates who do not use PR agencies, the more professional and national-level campaigning is done, the more a strategic and professional take on campaigning is needed. This is also shown in the financial resources that more professional politicians reserve and use for their campaigns. A consistent narrative, storytelling, leadership, and a creative flair create the foundation for an attractive personal brand. A strong personal brand is recognizable, it stands time, and it speaks to people. In campaigns especially, it engages people and makes them want to follow and in the end vote for a particular individual. Co-operation with the broadcast media helps the self-representation of a politician because they then have more control of what is brought on stage and what is left out. For example, with good co-operation with the media, they can negotiate and make decisions on how intimate information is shared in public. They can also negotiate the publicity of topics and their timing, and even get help from media for dealing with a crisis, for example, by getting information out ahead of publishing something relevant to their narrative. Simultaneously, politicians can benefit when they know how to embrace and exploit publicity, and more exposure means becoming more acknowledged among the public (Stanyer, 2013). Learning how to take advantage of this exposure can greatly benefit their campaigns. Networking is central to a politician. They need to build strong ties both within their party and with politicians from other parties because the core of politics is negotiating and influence. What Rogers (2015: 2) calls building ‘genuine movements’ has lately been seen, for example, with presidents Trump and Obama in the US, and in Finland with Pekka Haavisto in the presidential election of 2012 (Eränti & Lindman, 2014). These movements grow organically, and their core is in being able to create a strong follower base. Examples of these are the strong Acta Wasaensia 97 advocacy movements that spread on social media through hashtags and can promote legislation changes. Nielsen and Vaccari (2012) discuss an abundance of politicians on Facebook in the US political scene who successfully exploited the relevancy of the platform, yet only a few strong personas may manage their impression correctly. So far, no systemic research has been conducted on topic this for Finnish politicians. Naturally, candidates need to distinguish themselves from others, and to brand themselves better in order to stand out on social media, but this is particularly relevant to most of them (and especially in the future) for targeting groups more familiar with social media platforms. For example, Strandberg and Borg (2020: 117) view that the increasing online activity of younger candidates and constituents will lead to the growing significance of online and social media campaigning. Since campaigning has to do with marketing and it is now done in hybrid media environments (Chadwick, 2013), the candidates must know how to optimize digital marketing. Therefore intelligent ad targeting, choosing the right platforms, and creating engaging content is essential. Similarly, both online and in real life, the candidates need to turn their ‘likes’ into votes, and it is not enough just to get people to follow them. They have to get their electorate to the voting booths and to commit to the candidate and the party. This can be done by committing the electorate to politicians' personal brands, which sell their personas in campaigns. 3.3! Personal Brand of a Politician Representations of persona naturally lead to personal brands, specifically in politics, where ideas and politicians are sold to the public. Political images, political identities, brand communication, and differentiation constitute political branding. Political parties, politicians, and other political actors have a brand, and even some policies can become brands in the political discourse. Karvonen (2008) argues that the only way a political persona can survive is as a celebrity. Thus Karvonen might place political persona into the same subset of persona as celebrity, with an added connection to media. This supports the significance of media for celebrities as stated by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 33–34) in their description of the difference between persona and celebrity. Similarly, the only way a party or an ideology can stay alive is as a brand. If people are regarded as commodities, then political personas naturally convert into personal brands that appeal to the public through how they are represented and also what they represent. In this discourse, the electorate equals to consumers, wanting to know 98 Acta Wasaensia about the products, politicians, parties and policies, which indicates a need to construct a positive political brand. According to van Dijck (2013), politicians and their personalities have been marketed as products with the goal of turning their social value into resources. Hearn (2010) describes that consumers no longer only buy a product, but live through it. In politics, brands can simplify the voters’ choices and tighten the relationship between the voter and the political brand they choose (Kaneva & Klemmer, 2016; Khumar & Dhamija, 2017; Mokhtar, 2017). While a political personal brand is a combination of several characteristics, policies and representation, successful candidates have a few key characteristics in common (von Schoultz, Söderlund & Kestilä-Kekkonen, 2020: 170). These include previous experience as a representative both in parliament and on a local level, and public exposure either through a political career or as a celebrity from sports, media, or other public area. Generally in Finland, middle-aged or older candidates get the most votes. Gidden's (1995) idea of life politics refers to life choices forming a central area of political activity. Political choices are seen as a result of the morals and values of an individual, and are affected by personal lifestyle, tradition, socio-economic background, timing, and preferences of styles. In Finland, especially new (e.g. Movement Now with Hjallis Harkimo) and populist (e.g. True Finns with Timo Soini) parties have leaned on the charisma and personality of their leader (Niemi, 2012; 2013). Hjallis Harkimo has built a career as a business mogul, an innovative venture capitalist, a former athlete who has sailed around the world and performed in reality television shows, all of which have been major determining factors in his role as a politician. Notably, these strong, often controversial personas bring their values and views and combine them with good rhetorical skills, utilizing current events and challenges to boost their ideals. Furthermore, their brand leans on their media performances and previous roles and activities. Social media is a presentational media because the users are the content producers, and there is an active audience in the form of each person's network. The platforms are necessary for sharing information, but the active members are also users themselves. While traditional media organizations have not lost their power, some power has been ceded to the platform-owning companies. This influences our culture and choice, and changes media content more towards individuals and layers of self, thereby adding to the authenticity requirement of everyone producing content (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 18, 48–49). As stated earlier in relation to persona representations, authentic content that seems more spontaneous and humane is more likely to engage users on social media Acta Wasaensia 99 (Enli, 2015a; Enli, 2009; Nave, Shifman & Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2018). However, even though there is a requirement for authenticity, marketing, and strategic selling may violate that authenticity and lead the audience to be skeptical towards content, which suggests caution needs to be taken when employing these principals. The personal brand of a politician is the sellable persona; i.e., a constructed public representation of self which results from all the activities that individuals and their audience perform publicly for the political role and setting. This is understood through Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2015, 2020: 7), who argue that political persona is negotiated through meanings dependent on the prosoprographic relations (e.g. via shared characteristics), and a bio constructed from the person's life and careers. These are often brought up when creating a persona narrative that looks to be appealing to the public. My approach in this study to set online personas as equal to personal brands is similar to van Dijck’s (2013) view of the concepts. According to Petruc! (2016), social media is the best and easiest platform for constructing a personal brand, gaining a reputation, and achieving exposure in a particular field or niche. The personalization of politics has been suggested as one reason for the broadened discussion about politicians' personal brands, and has been argued to have increased in Finnish politics (Isotalus, 2017: 51). Thus, the added focus on people also invites deliberation of politicians' personal brands and their effect on campaigns and political life. 3.3.1! Personalization and personal brands A brand is used to include all of the elements associated with an individual, company, product or service (Omojola, 2008). A political personal brand refers to individual politicians and how they are viewed. Hearing or seeing a certain politician's name associates it with the issues belonging to that politician's personal brand. This way, a brand is a promise, and almost a guarantee to the people. But when voting for something that goes against their early representations, politicians are often seen as "turning their coats". As political communication becomes more personalized (especially when related to campaigns), politicians' personal brands become the central focus. Rudd (2016: 163) as well as Plasser and Plasser (2002: 1, 344, 348) argue that parties are no longer the center of campaigns. Instead, it is the leaders whose popularity is pivotal in engaging with the electorate through different media. The persona of the party leader has been considered as a significant factor in how a voter commits to or relates to a political party (Isotalus, 2017: 56). However, research on the topic is controversial and varies through countries and timelines. Political personal brands 100 Acta Wasaensia are essential in connecting with the electorate, providing ideas on how parties or candidates can represent the public without outlining each topic in political communication, and give ideas to those members of the public who are not as informed on political issues. Political brands are also dependent on the perceptions of the people that value them. For example, when assessing the Finns party slogan building the brand around the "Finland for Finns" value, it needs to be remembered that this builds an image of a racist, anti-immigrant party for some people. In contrast, for others, it builds an image of a party trying to protect Finland and care for its citizens, and is thus easy to connect with. Similar right-wing populist movements are also seen in other European countries, and this value sets a promise to the electorate that the party considers anti-immigration policy as their primary objective. Thus, the viewpoint changes the perception and image, even though the brand stays the same and represents the party identity. "imunjak's (2018) study on Croatian politicians concludes that they use social media to distribute information on campaign activities, instead of representing their persona or themselves as individuals or discussing political issues. Surprisingly, the mediated newspaper content was seen to be more personal than the more direct social media communication, which would suggest that social media does not add personalization by nature. The identities of political candidates consist of their personalities and their personal and professional lives (Frame & Brachotte, 2015). These identities are represented in public, thus creating a political persona. This persona is connected with self-branding and reputation, and its influence depends on the effect and resonance of the persona (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 113). According to Hearn (2010): "Self-branding may be considered a form of affective immaterial labour that is purposefully undertaken by individuals in order to garner attention, reputation and potentially, profit." Politicians’ personal brands should describe to the voter what kind of values, decisions, and actions they can expect from a politician. Some politicians use their private lives to relate to constituents and seem more approachable (Isotalus, 2017: 86), and in this way, they can also represent their values in a more personal way. Branding in politics is significant for gaining support and votes, and also for maintaining reputation. Similar to Karvonen (2008), Davis (2010: 83) compares politicians to celebrities, and mentions charisma and personal qualities as a significant part of the popularity of several politicians. This requires talent in negotiating personas. Therefore, the politician's stand on certain issues is not the only important thing when gaining popularity. Media also looks for personal Acta Wasaensia 101 stories to engage the public with the politicians (Davis, 2010: 84–86), and these need to be effectively communicated. While marketers approaching politics sometimes view political brands as similar to consumer products, it is essential to remember some key differences. A political brand consists of previous representations and new information relating to a politician or party. While de Lantsheer and de Vries (2015) as well as Enli (2015b) highlight the importance of authenticity and acting as promised, Smith (2009) argues that in politics, political brands are not expected to have an equal level of honesty to commercial brands because politicians are expected to change positions and be populist in their rhetoric. In political branding, it is often more common to highlight the differences of the competitors. A third difference that Smith (2009) notes, is the significant impact of individual politicians in the case of political brands, where the personality of a politician, particularly party leaders, can have a considerable effect in building the image and popularity of the party. The terms reputation and image are used in similar contexts with brand, and are often defined similarly in research. Often, brand is discussed in relation with customers, and image is discussed when communicating to stakeholders. This supports the selling aspect related to the concept of brand. Image could be seen as similar to persona without the collective aspect of its creation. According to Isotalus (2017: 122, 124), when referring to politics, image is more widely used, even though he suggests it is more trendy to talk about constructing a brand rather than modifying an image, even though similar issues, results and actions are referred to. Especially, the use of social media in political communication is steering the terminology more towards brands. In this study, brands are considered to refer more directly to the idea of marketing and sales in the context of election campaigns. The idea is more in ‘selling the persona’ and the idea of a current moment, even though there are also long-term ideas involved. For example, during a campaign, a politician chooses to promote specific issues and remind the electorate more of certain characteristics relating to a particular campaign. The aim is to create a character that is associated with particular messages and emotions, and who also appeals to the voters. The politician also externally resembles their message and style. Isotalus (2017: 124) states that each politician has an image, and they only need to be familiar enough to have people attach specific values or characteristics to them. Therefore, image requires publicity as something to make a politician known. There are two sides to image, and while it is something external that is built and constructed with communication, on the other hand, it is also about individual perceptions (Karvonen, 1999). In the same way, brand construction requires public 102 Acta Wasaensia performance and is dependent on an interpretation from outside. My focus is also in contributing to persona literacy (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 129), hence the choice to outline the concept of image from this study and focus on persona as the public representation of self. Kaputa (2012) defines personal brand as an exceptional promise of value that separates an individual from others that are in similar professional or other dimensions. Brand represents value by including image and reputation. It communicates the value placed on a particular product, service or company, and at the same time gives a specific customer promise. Brand is constructed through various communicative actions, and constructing a brand requires long-term performance and excelling in the actions performed. The concept of personalization can be understood in several ways. My theory- building follows Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer’s (2012) operationalization that separates personalization into two dimensions: individualization and privatization (Figure 1). Individualization refers to the increased focus on individual politicians at the expense of parties or policies. This can be further divided into general visibility and concentrated visibility. General visibility means that the exposure is generally attached to individual politicians. In contrast, concentrated visibility describes the visibility attached to political leaders, such as the prime minister or party leaders. Likewise, according to Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012), privatization has two dimensions. The detailed focus on personal characteristics includes evaluating the personal attributes and characteristics of politicians, and the revelation of private life centers around their social relationships, hobbies, or childhood. This study elaborates a previous study conducted on personalization in traditional media in the Finnish context by Isotalus and Almonkari (2014) to the setting of Facebook and the idea of a politician's personal brand. I do this by analyzing how persona and personal brands are constructed in campaigns in a dual actor model, including the politicians and the public as actors in the process. To include the emotional dimension of social media discussions, Metz, Kruikemeier and Lecheler (2020) add the personalization typology of three dimensions of professional, emotional and private to Van Santen and Van Zoonen's (2010) theoretical framework for self-personalization. However, instead of this application, I discuss emotions as part of the private dimension in my operationalization. This is because the typology in three dimensions oversimplifies how content is constructed on Facebook, and posts mostly present all of the dimensions. Thus, their content needs to be analyzed with a more precise research approach and content categorization, for which Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer’s Acta Wasaensia 103 (2012) operationalization fits better with the modifications required by the application on social media context in this study. There is also a privatization model based on Stanyer's (2013) concept of three circles of privatization. The first is the intimate circle consisting of health, preferences, lifestyle, sexuality and religion. The second circle includes close relationships, like family, friends and lovers. The third circle is built around the individual's personal space, like home and vacation spots. Personal space is prominent in Stanyer’s (2013) framework, however, it is not considered relevant in the context of this study, where the focus is on social media. When political candidates are active online, they build up their online identities, thereby building their personal brands. In social media, politicians act as influencers, using micro-celebrity techniques for their party, themselves, and for their political ideas (see Senft, 2008). In relation to Twitter, public representatives have been recognized as needing to pay attention to both what and how they tweet (Frame & Brachotte, 2015). Yet by 2020, there have been parliamentary representatives in Finland whose tweets have been subject to further investigation because of their inappropriate content, and usually the cases have been related to hate speech (Strömberg & Hakahuhta, 2020). By arguing that "the similarities between the online presentations of people and products, individuals and brands are striking", van Dijck (2013) points out that similar strategies and tactics are used, and that the interfaces are similar, regardless of the type of platform and its communication focus. Facebook further supports this narrative and the self-promotion of individuals. One reason for this is that Facebook has a similar approach to both aspects, and the pages used for branding either individuals or products look the same and follow similar guidelines. I will now turn the focus on the affordances of Facebook specifically in constructing personal brands for politicians. 3.3.2! Affordances of Facebook for personal brands The construction of brands on Facebook is conditioned by the tools or functions the platform offers, and what it allows the users to do. This can be examined by turning to affordance theory, particularly that relating to technology. Hutchby (2001) describes affordances as recognizing the constraining and enabling elements of technology. On Facebook, the affordances are socio-technical, meaning that they are both human- and technology-centric (Malhotra, Majchrzak & Lyytinen, 2021), because the focus is on the interaction between the users, the platform technology, and the social context (see also Ariel & Avidar, 2015). For the 104 Acta Wasaensia candidates, brand construction is, or as argued earlier, should be an acknowledged strategic process where they can use multimodal posts and replies to communicate directly with their constituents. The public, on the other hand, are doing it in less acknowledged and more often less strategic ways, unless they are part of the volunteer organization or committed supporters or opponents of a candidate. They also communicate with multi-modal messages and reactions or by sharing the candidate’s material elsewhere. However, both actors use the tools that the platform affords for their interaction in the platform. While campaign staff and candidates are more familiar with the professional side of campaign communication through communication training and consultants, the public might not actively consider that they are working on the candidate's brand when discussing issues in their comments, even if their discussion relates directly to the persona. More often, for the public, commenting is used for relieving frustration, showing admiration, or seeking attention for a topic or even the individuals themselves. Whether this is unintentional or not is a relevant issues, because on Facebook, the level of exposure exceeds that typical of coffee table discussions. Kalsnes, Larsson, and Enli (2017) propose operationalizing social media logic into three “connected affordances”. They divide affordances according to the basic functions of Facebook. Acknowledging refers to likes and favorites, redistributing refers to shares, and interacting to comments. Their study focuses on easily measurable affordances of Facebook. However in my study, by adding a qualitative perspective, I analyze the posts and content through what kind of affordances they show to be used. I approach affordances with a broader view point, as a more broad description of how Facebook can be used for expressing, constructing and promoting a personal brand. Hence, the adaption of the model which Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013) have formulated for political parties. This approach is similar to that described by Bucher and Helmond (2018) who describe the concept of affordance as something that “material artefacts such as media technologies allow people to do.” Based on their definitions, this approach takes the high-level affordance dimension where the focus is on the conditions and dynamics that are possible because of technology, platforms, and media. The affordances of Facebook for the construction of a politician's personal brand are presented in Table 1. Based on what has been argued about campaign communication goals and functions on Facebook, I have developed the table from Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013). The groups of facilitation, projection and creation are kept the same. However, modifications have been made to the specifics within those functions of how a user can benefit from using Facebook for Acta Wasaensia 105 personal brand construction. This individual's perspective requires some modification when relating to the affordances for political parties which is more narrow in scope. The original affordances (Blegind Jensen & Dyrby, 2013) were: Direct communication, promotion of political messages, Dialogue and control for the facilitated group; projected authenticity, informality, and personality; and created interaction and involvement. For personal brand construction, I have focused on affordances that add engagement. The middle column shows what the candidates want to facilitate: communication planning, mobilization transparency as a way to build trust, hybrid media presence, appealing to the masses, and impression management. Projection involves issues of approach, an illusion of authenticity, and personality, and McGregor (2017) refers to this as the possibility for the politicians to humanize themselves. Lastly, for what candidates want to create, I have added transparency and exposure. The role of the public was not considered in the original frame, so I have added an additional column on the right compiled both from theory and preliminary content analysis of the data. In Table 1, the main affordances are written in bold capital letters, and connected with linked affordances that describe how each main affordance can occur. The affordances cannot be placed in order of importance, but in the table, they are placed in order starting from the effects on the individual, and moving to the effects on society. As Bucher and Helmond (2018) describe, affordances are “communicative actions” that should be analyzed through what is allowed and limited by the technology in question. In this study, Facebook is the environment where these communicative actions take place, and they are shaped accordingly. As Table 1 shows, direct communication as an affordance is facilitated by both user groups on Facebook – the candidates and the public. The politicians address the electorate on-topic messages and self-promotion. They can solicit wishes, ask for the politician's stance on topical issues, and communicate societal issues that they want the politicians to address in their policies. The candidates can in turn express their values and policies through these topic messages and sharing information. ! 106 Acta Wasaensia Table 1. Facebook affordances for personal brand construction !"#$%&'#(' )((#"*+,-.' /+0,'+,*'10,2.*')((#"*+,-.&!3' 4+,*0*+5.&' /+0,'+,*'10,2.*')((#"*+,-.&'3'''' 6$780-' 9+-0805+50#,' :;<=4>'4?//@A;4)>;?A"!#$%&'! ()**+,)*-!*.+/&0,!&01$/(+#&$0-! &0123)0')-!'+(%+&,0!#/+&2!3%4+#)*-! %/$($#&0,!&4)+*-!&(()4&+#)! '$((30&'+#&$0!! BCD<;:'/=:;)'6<=E=A4="!*.+/&0,! $#.)/!'$0#)0#!562$,*-!7&4)$*-! +/#&'2)*8-!+00$30'&0,!#)2)7&*&$0! +%%)+/+0')*! 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Acta Wasaensia 107 Another similar affordance for both the electorate and politicians is the hypermedia presence described in Table 1. Politicians can get more exposure for their articles where they are covered, their television appearances, and for their own content elsewhere, while the public can use Facebook as a forum to comment on and inquire about them. For example, television debates and topics can be widely discussed by the public, and also in their interactions with the candidates. The facilitation of voting is significant to candidates (Table 1.). They can easily facilitate voting by reminding the constituents of voting locations, numbers, the general importance of voting, and promoting themselves or their party as the right choice. Through mobilization, they can connect with the electorate and mobilize them for the campaign, for example as campaign staff or for fundraising. Politicians can facilitate dialogue by collecting opinions, listening to the electorate, and allowing free discussion, and this requires that they also listen and reply when the electorate expresses their opinions and wishes. Table 1 presents that by using multiple types of content, i.e., photos, videos, text, emojis, and links to articles, candidates can appeal to the masses by expressing a whole persona, and presenting different dimensions of their life and career by showing both the practical and the emotional sides of themselves. This type of content play can also appeal to the masses because it is how the public themselves use the platform. Facebook is more informal, and it is almost expected that more personal and intimate content expressed in a personal style and with multimodal type content is shared. Facebook also allows more possibilities for impression management for the candidates because they control the representation and narrative on their page (Metz, Kruikemeier & Lecheler, 2020). Namely, they can moderate discussions, remove and edit content, and choose what they post and bring to the public. The possibilities of Facebook and the requirements for a candidate's communication planning facilitate a more strategic approach for communication. However, while possibly being a less costly option for political marketing, it still requires planning and the strategic distribution of both money and labor. Through Facebook, candidates can project an illusion of authenticity (Enli, 2015a), and in that way try to appeal as likable, approachable and relatable candidates to the electorate. Facebook as a communication environment can be used to project an approachable persona and a more relaxed, more "human" or down-to-earth persona because the platform allows for easy language and communication through emojis or different visual content like memes. The pages can be made personal by presenting more of a person’s personality, through personal content, choosing profile and layout pictures, and strategically considering each post to 108 Acta Wasaensia support the planned aim as presented in Table 1. This way, it is possible to choose what to share, and which issues support the candidates' image-building, credibility, and the sense that they listen to the electorate. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 50) describe Facebook as a CV-type addition for portfolios, an outlet where individuals can create identities representing the public version of themselves. Bockowski et al. (2018) also describe Facebook as a platform where the "socially acceptable self" is displayed. However, van Dijck (2013) argues that the interest of the platform is in authentic and transparent persona representations, since that supports the data acquisition needs of their advertisers. However, this is related more to individual users, not necessarily the public pages. Enli (2015: 121; 2015b) also discusses this dilemma of mediated authenticity concerning persona representations, where self-performances are produced, scripted and socially constructed. Several technical factors on the platform promote the idea of selling a persona on and through it. Facebook enables large text postings, sharing images, creating events and groups to promote activities, and also to measure engagement with the analysis tools it provides for users on the platform. However, in the study by Scolere, Pruchniewska, and Duffy (2018), the interviewees reported the harmful effects of these algorithmic functions and their effect on managing their self-branding and promotion. As seen in Table 1, Facebook allows and builds broad exposure for candidates if used correctly. This exposure can be cost-efficient and appealing to the electorate through strategically produced organic reach because it resembles word-of-mouth marketing. For the candidate's personal brand, the use of Facebook can add transparency, especially if the candidate constructs a complete and authentic persona and is willing to reveal more about their private side. Politicians can use Facebook to create better interaction between candidates and the electorate. This can be dynamic at its best, with low hierarchy and fast reactions, which can help remove the barriers between the electorate and politicians. This and the built trust can foster involvement, and the electorate can connect better with the candidate, thus becoming committed followers and supporters (Table 1). According to Kalsnes, Larsson, and Enli (2018), interaction is performed with comments, but their view is limited compared to this study. I am analyzing interaction through all types of engagement, including comments, shares, reactions, and following. Table 1 shows that when the public discuss issues online, the use of Facebook also facilitates their own impression management. The networks they belong to, the discussions they join, and the reactions they give are all part of their self- representation. This then projects their image, and who they discuss, who they Acta Wasaensia 109 follow, and which topics they discuss all define how others perceive them. Through some content, they may also receive added exposure, and they can contact the candidates directly. The public can show support or oppose candidates through Facebook, and they can use the platform to argue their opinions and to mobilize others. With these interaction possibilities, the public can seek information or verification for a candidate's or party's stance on political topics, and also suggest topics they feel the candidate should take forward. For example, citizen initiatives are often spread on Facebook so as to gain them more exposure. The public can project societal issues on Facebook, promoting past decisions, and referring to policies and cultural topics. On Facebook, they share humane stories and concerns on a personal level, and those are used to draw attention to, for example, health care or unemployment issues. As Table 1 shows, the public can also use Facebook to inform themselves and others, learn through political discussion, or to follow multiple candidates to get different viewpoints. This relates to improving their understanding, and they can acquire new information and arguments for particular topic issues. Similar to journalists or campaign staff, professionals can also use the platform to follow multiple candidates and get news content and other information that typically comes first on social media because the platform functions in real-time and is used for more spontaneous publishing. Table 1 presents that the public can create connections through Facebook. Especially, they can build relationships and dialogue with the candidates, and re- live or extend their meetings with them by sending more information or comment on a live meeting in a campaign event or elsewhere. Furthermore, they can connect with other users by forming networks, support groups, or get a shorter sense of community by engaging with those discussing a comment thread. As described in section 2.2.2, some people use Facebook for damaging purposes, such as trolls causing disturbance or those who want to spread hate campaigns (see Table 1). Strong counterargument or hate campaigns can be used to lessen a candidate's credibility or appeal, and for them, this may support an aim to prevent someone from being elected. This type of behavior has been studied as election harassment, and in the national election study of 2019, over half of the 770 candidates who had responded to the survey, reported having noticed election harassment in websites or social media accounts (Wass, Isotalo & Limnéll, 2020). Thus, damaging a candidate's personal brand is considered part of a conscious brand construction act from the public's side, and even if Facebook is used for harmful purposes, this use is noted in the model and my analysis. Facebook has created an illusion of communication based on the ideal of non- hierarchy. Broadcasted media always has its gate-keepers, but Facebook seemingly 110 Acta Wasaensia hands this power to individual users. Because of this logic, individual users and their content have overriding importance, for example, compared to organizations who struggle to find natural and appealing ways to communicate through this platform built on individual-to-individual-based communication. However, this power is still just an illusion, as the platform controls its algorithm and affordances, which can either benefit or challenge the users in reaching their communication goals. The monetization aspect in the functions of Facebook is important for self- representation. While the user is conscious in making decisions on what to present, the platform and its algorithm functions decide the narrative to support the interests of their advertisers (van Dijck, 2013) because it decides what people encounter online (Beer, 2009). For example, people who tend to like or share political news content are categorized as being interested in politics in the algorithm, which is then likely to show more similar content (Thorson et al., 2021). For this, behavioral data generated content such as single clicks for likes and reactions is often not a strategic or conscious consideration of self-expression from the user. According to van Dijck (2013), the algorithm defines "a qualitative validation of someone's influence" through these things. In this way, the reactions and engagement to the pages and posts of a politician, together with their influence and social value are measured in Facebook. This then affects the organic, un-paid exposure they get, for example, by being shown on someone's feed as a result of a friend commenting or reacting to a post. On Facebook, these reactions are a central form for promoting engagement. But according to Gerodimos and Justinussen (2015), in their study of Obama and his Facebook page in the election of 2012, they found that when analyzing the followers, their engagement was selective, and there was more engagement with campaign messages and policy-orientated posts than with those that were purely promotional. The targeting function makes Facebook a useful forum for marketing, for example in a political campaign, because it allows a specific definition of the users who will see the ad on their feed or sidebar. These functions also build Facebook as a company because most of its revenue comes from advertising, and since 2012 it has been a publicly listed company (Fuchs, 2014). Public pages also include the Page Insight Data function, which enables the page admin to see what kind of posts work by considering engagement and exposure (van Dijck, 2013). In this way, even rapid changes in approach are possible, and strategic planning in terms of target groups and content can be less resource-intensive than working with outside PR agencies. However, in order to fully exploit these possibilities, it requires both financial and time resources, which speaks for the benefit of bigger parties and candidates with more resources. The vast resource intensity in time, energy, Acta Wasaensia 111 capital, and technological knowledge, for self-branding on social media has also been noted by other researchers (Scolere, Pruchniewska & Duffy, 2018). The design of Facebook profiles works similarly on pages and profiles. Timelines are organized chronologically, supporting the impression of narrative in self- representation (van Dijck, 2013). Each action such as the decision to post, comment, or react can be considered as conscious or unconscious identity shaping. Profiles are focused on the friend-function, making them more personal, while pages are seen as more of a tool for promoting self for the audience with a follower- function. These public profiles allow individuals to connect with the page owner globally instead of just connecting with those in the tighter network, and van Dijck (2013) characterizes this as a shift from connectedness to connectivity. This connectivity has been argued to require more personal and time commitment in the activity of self-representation. But in social media, professional, private, and intimate content often overlap and intertwine, especially with individuals who have added exposure, such as politicians. 3.4! Professional, Private, and Intimate Boundaries The public persona is detached from home life, even though it can play a part in the public projection of self. This projection is mediatized and public, and it requires networks to engage and encourages actions of likes and followers. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 26, 54, 79, 126) argue that this requires "interpersonal forms of communication, strategic management of the performance of the self", and continuous communication activities. The user is both the consumer and the producer of content in online networks. Therefore, those responsible for the persona and its construction need to understand how the networks work, and how the self is presented. This study aims at precisely that, by helping politicians, their communication agencies, and the public understand both the significance and process of personal brand construction, and also the affordances that Facebook offers for it. Politicians need to balance between the professional self and the private because of the public nature of their work. Especially, they are prey to both the media and the public when revealing too much intimate detail, and this can also weaken their credibility as politicians. However, in deciding to maintain a purely professional persona, it may be hard for the electorate to relate to the politician. Social media is especially tied with personal representation and engagement. Thus, exposure is usually only possible through negotiating meanings that are more private, interesting, and revealing. In the same way that magazines sell more when they 112 Acta Wasaensia publish more private and intimate content (Juntunen & Väliverronen, 2009; Karvonen, 2008; Steensen, 2016), an individual post or comment online ‘sells more’ if measured through engagement, when it reveals something interesting or is styled so that it triggers the public. Therefore during a campaign, the different dimensions of persona are vital for a candidate in connecting with the electorate, appealing to the public, and presenting a credible and relatable persona. According to Herkman (2011: 34) and Street (2004), media exposure frequently blurs the lines of the private and public dimensions of a politician’s personas, since the content is created from both the public and professional role, and the private life of politicians. In broadcast media, these lines can be renegotiated and changed. However, media does not always ask the politician whether something can be published (Karvonen, 2008), and their lives are expected to belong under the public eye (Kunelius & Reunanen, 2012). Social media has added even more confusion to this development. Public figures have their own social media profiles, which provide more direct access to them, or at least a more viable way of communicating with them than provided by any newspaper opinion piece or public event that is not directly attended. Public figures also have control over what they choose to publish on their profiles, but not on what the public choose to publish. Railo (2011) argues that when looking at profile articles, any personal content is always political. He states that personal life is used to polish the public image and develop popularity. In his study, he notes that it offers a possibility to show their softer side and relationships for men, while for women, it is mostly about the thoughts of balancing a home and career. However, he also suggests that after 2000, there has been a reversion to the personal being personal again, which highlights the idea of individualization in society. At the same time, Railo (2011) suggests that politicians are symbols of the political values and topics attached to their personal brand. Accordingly, politics is followed through them, and personas are seen as significant when the electorate decides whom to vote for. Thus, I argue that for the electorate, political is personal. 3.4.1! Celebrity politicians The best way to understand a politician’s persona is by way of looking at celebrities and the way they are understood and viewed. The culture around celebrities and how they perform public representations of self and negotiate their identities resembles the online production process, which has become a public tool for everyone (Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020: 34, 39). The central idea is in self- production, and celebrities provide models and frames for organizations and individuals who want to construct public representations of self. In this, the Acta Wasaensia 113 audience, participants, and these personas form a collective where personas are constructed, where perceptions are formed, and where the need for these personas becomes evident. McMillin (2020) suggests that in online communities, political actors are approached as icons resembling fictional characters, with idolizing fans appearing in the form of followers. This suggests that with online culture, the fan culture has transformed to apply to real individuals from all aspects of society. This transformation has been put forward by the online world and the rise of reality television, where ordinary citizens have become television stars and been considered as celebrities. However, new forms of celebrity culture have affected how business CEOs, politicians, and other visible personas are considered and treated on public stages. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 35) state that “celebrity is a sub-set of persona”. Therefore, celebrity is one dimension of an individual’s persona, but it does not constitute it as a whole. Celebrity status can provide more exposure and interest towards a persona, but other factors determine what it is for each individual. The idea of politicians as celebrities furthers earlier views from Marshall (1997), where he discussed celebrities as having discursive power, the power to be seen, and expressing themselves in front of masses. Politicians already have that power, but now use celebrity status for added exposure for both themselves and their agenda. But while doing this, they also expose themselves to the possibility of getting negative attention. Thus, while seeking the glamour, there is always the possibility of being resented (Marshall, 1997: 3). Karvonen (2008) suggests remembering Turner’s (2004) differentiation between public figures and celebrities, where the public nature of the role of an individual would always make them a public figure, but only an added interest in their personal life makes them a celebrity. Therefore the process of ‘celebritization’ as a change in the interests of the public and media, defines whether a politician is a seen as a public figure or a celebrity. The basic premise of Facebook is the interest in individuals and sharing their life through a timeline, and thus challenges this division of roles. A similar challenge comes from the part of the electorate for whom political is personal, and who view the private dimension of persona as essential to connect with politicians. Also, in Turner’s (2004) definition, the role is defined by the media’s interest. However, Karvonen (2008) suggests that these two roles can co-exist, depending on how the politicians are represented at any given time. Figure 13 presents how celebrity can affect and serve politicians. Some individuals are already celebrities when they start their political career, whereas others 114 Acta Wasaensia become celebrities after entering the political game with more public exposure (Herkman, 2011: 110). Finnish examples of these celebrities defined by their political life are Alexander Stubb (Hämäläinen & Stubb, 2017), Sauli Niinistö (Karvonen, 1999: 111), and Matti Vanhanen, while for example, Jaana Pelkonen, Sari Essayah, Hjallis Harkimo, and Mikko Alatalo represent celebrity candidates, whose previous careers have had exposure in sports, television, and music, and their celebrity status existed before their introduction into the political arena. However, even if they benefit from added recognition from before their political exposure, surveys have shown that the electorate rarely considers these celebrities as credible candidates. In the 2019 elections, only 10 of the 200 elected candidates were seen as this kind of public figure when campaigning (von Schoultz, Söderlund & Kestilä-Kekkonen, 2020: 110). Thus, status and added recognition are not always beneficial. In Finland, while it seems that several celebrity candidates have entered the parliament, many have not received enough votes, so the significance of celebrity status is debatable concerning the voting result (Herkman, 2011: 104; Niemi, 2007: 151, 173). Consequently, this indicates that something other than celebrity status is needed to win the electorate over. McMillin (2020) reminds us that when a politician becomes an icon or someone who is idolized, there is the problem that the fans set themselves up for disappointment because the politicians will make decisions that contradict the fans’ values. Figure 13. The celebrity politician (Modified from Street, 2004; Marshall, Moore & Barbour, 2020). Before a campaign, a candidate may already have had significant publicity, which can benefit both the candidate and the party (Railo et al., 2016: 321; Figure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cta Wasaensia 115 This, for example, can determine who receives exposure in the media (Street, 2004), and can also effect how much private representation there already is of the politician. While some candidates use publicity merely to bring political issues to a broader public and focus strictly on politics, others are willing or forced into greater exposure which can hurt or benefit them in elections. Herkman (2011: 18) views that while media exposure is not the only publicity area, its significance is increasing. For example, Harkimo has utilized this in the Finnish context. As a celebrity candidate, he has gained exposure for both him as a candidate and politician, and to Movement Now which he founded to challenge the traditional political parties. He has also tried to find other candidates with previous recognition for the movement. Politically, media exposure is a central forum of political activity, where opinions are formed and molded. Mediatized publicity does not require presence or time since politicians can speak to the electorate through interviews on television or news articles. However, with social media, politicians are no longer tied to time and place in addressing the electorate, and they can tweet or post through their pages on their way to meetings or just before going to bed. For example, Alexander Stubb (Hämäläinen & Stubb, 2017) describes in his book how taxi trips and flight delays were spent tweeting ideas to the public. This way, the public are also partly invited into their private life when politicians communicate to them directly, even from their private life situations and locations. 3.4.2! Negotiating professional, private, and intimate According to Isotalus (2017: 84), when it comes to characteristics and more intimate information in Finnish politics, there are the ‘people charmers’ and the ‘policy politicians’. These, and the further dimensions in their representations are presented in Figure 14, showing how professional and private content may overlap also being more prominent compared to intimate content. This phenomenon is referred to as the privatization of politics, and Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) distinguish two categories. First is the media attention of the politician’s personal characteristics and private life. Here, private life in practice includes family, free-time, love life, past, childhood, and growing up. Some characteristics are hard to distinguish as the private or the professional self, so systematic research on the topic is rare. There are also significant differences between different countries and political systems regarding the privatization of politics (Isotalus, 2017: 85). For a politician, their decisions to share something with the public are usually irreversible, so sharing the private and intimate requires careful consideration. 116 Acta Wasaensia Figure 14. The politician’s persona (modified from Isotalus & Almonkari, 2011). In my research, I use the concepts of professional, private, and intimate to separate the type of content that can be distinguished from public pages, their posts and comments, and which are thus used to construct the politicians’ personal brands. These concepts function as my tools for defining Finnish politicians and their personal brands. The division is based on the operationalization by Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012); Professional is defined as the official, work and career- related content. Personal content includes leisure, characteristics and feelings. Intimate content consists of the personal that is only shown to close ones such as immediate family, close friends or lovers, and including topics of health and religion. Persona is the interplay between these dimensions of content, and the intimate dimension is understood in this study through the definitions of Stanyer (2013), Frame and Brachotte (2015), and Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 4, 80). The ratio between professional and private content has not exclusively been investigated in Facebook posts, even though the blending of the two is often discussed concerning social media. In Frame and Brachotte’s (2015) study on the content of the politicians’ tweets during European parliament campaigning, they separated private content as anything outside the political arena. They further separated personal content from private as content that involves intimate issues, like romantic relationships and intimate relations. This distinction is similar to the framework chosen in this study. However, the analysis considers that sometimes in politics, personal is used to build credibility for the professional; for example, !"#$%$&$'()*+!,-*"('+ !"#$%&"'("($)*+"%+,"(--+"'+"./01'2 !"#$%& '"($)%$*+ 34)5-((')+%1"!"3)1'&'2%1"&).'2(6"%2&'7'&'-("%+," 4)1-6".4)5-((')+%1"+-&*)48( ,-*./0.& '"($)%$*+ 34'7%&-"!"9-'(/4-"&':-6".4'7%&-"4)1-(6"34'7%&-"+-&*)48( ;+&':%&-"!"3-4()+%1".%(&6"()2'%1"4-1%&')+($'.(6"5%:'1< Acta Wasaensia 117 parenthood may be referenced in order to build credibility for discussing policies related to children. Langer’s (2009) analysis of Tony Blair in the United Kingdom concludes that the degree of private in relation to the political persona is dependent on the personality of the politician, and also their communication strategies. Even a widely visible leader can still have a mostly private life, despite whether their actions and role are very public. In Finland, several politicians keep their private life private, and Finnish politicians have differing views to the media about their private lives and how public they should be (Isotalus & Almonkari, 2014). The resistance to include intimate or private in politicians’ image and their need and want to hide their private life and keep it away from public gaze has been reported by Isotalus and Almonkari (2012). However, increased exposure potential poses challenges to this choice since it embraces a wide variety of media representations. Thus, it is very dependent on the individual, and also whether revealing a higher degree of private persona is felt to work for or against their political persona. While intimate information is not expected from politicians in Finland, it is common that citizens know very personal things about politicians. Their hobbies, personal likes, and the spouses of politicians are common topics in the media. Pernaa, Niemi and Pitkänen (2009) refer to this as “the expansion of the media exposure of politics”, referring to this increase of political news content to include other content than just political topics. Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 232, 240, 256) have also suggested that the use of private and intimate dimensions of the persona as a political campaign tool can provoke the electorate. Studying this topic contributes to understanding whether politicians are considered as public figures, celebrities, or micro-celebrities (Turner, 2004; Marshall, 2014) in Finland, and if the same dimensions be applied to them as to other professionals. Some politicians form their identity through professionality by building a political career where their political knowledge and experience makes them more recognized among the public. However, there are politicians with a background, for example in the entertainment industry, being first known for something completely different (Herkman, 2011: 104). Modern-day politicians can thus be divided into categories based on how their political role has been formed, which party they represent, and how they construct their brands through and with the help of these factors (see Figure 14). In the next chapter, I propose a model that will be used for my analysis, and elaborate how the concepts of personal brand, persona and identity are defined and used in this study. 118 Acta Wasaensia 3.5! Personal Brand, Persona and Identity in this Study Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 6, 201) explain persona studies starting from the notion that online personas can be negotiated and strategically produced. The theoretical framework in this study is rooted in the five dimensions of persona they present; the public, mediatized, performative, collectively constructed, and intentional production of persona. Politicians' brands in campaign communication are the result of an active and acknowledged collective production process, and are represented publicly through media. The exposure and publicity of a politician are approached through the celebrity politician types modeled by Street (2004). The approach for analyzing political personas online is modified from the operationalization on personalization presented by Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) that distinguishes personalization into two dimensions; individualization and privatization. As brands include all dimensions of the person, the analysis of the dimensions of brands is performed by reflecting the representations of political self modified from the representations of academic self presented by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 190). Especially, the use of social media in political communication is steering the terminology more towards brands. The term brand can be used in connection to big corporations or single products, so it is important to distinguish personal brands in this context of election campaigns to separate the discussion about individual candidates from parties. Personal brands are closely related to persona, the publicly represented self. Still, with personal brands, the focus is on selling the persona, having a marketed self, and the idea of that particular moment, even though there are also long-term ideas involved. As Duffy and Pooley (2017) describe in their study on the self-branding of academics, personal brands are social capital, and a way to stay visible and to validate one’s influence. For brands, one must also consider what others are doing and saying because personal brands are constructed collectively, the result being partly strategic and partly coincidental. A brand can be developed, in that it can switch focus and be something for one person and another thing for someone else. As such, it can be seen as a transforming process. Regardless of the ideas of selling and process related to personal brand, it needs to be genuine, unique, visible, relevant, and have continuity (Preece & Kerrigan, 2015). For example, during a campaign, a politician chooses to promote specific issues and remind constituents of certain characteristics in relation to a particular campaign. The aim is to create a character that is associated with specific messages and emotions. The politician also externally looks like the message and style that they publish. Isotalus (2017: 124) Acta Wasaensia 119 states that each publicly recognized politician has an image, and they need to be familiar enough to have people attach specific values or characteristics to them. Therefore, an image requires publicity, in order to make a politician known. As van Dijck (2013) suggests, on online platforms, the self can be promoted as a "standardized tradable product", which in this study is understood through the concept of the personal brand - the sellable self. She also reminds us that this self is not a true reflection of self, but rather a platform-shaped reflection of behavior, steered by different user group interests. While van Dijck (2013) presents identity formation as being shaped through algorithms, the default setting, and protocols, I suggest adding the effect of user-generated content. One element in this is the algorithm affected by the reactions and comments as an indicator of the magnitude of engagement. However, my focus is on the content of the posts and comments, as they show what the public see, what they learn about the politician in question, and what they would know without filtering or evaluating the public discussion on Facebook. Figure 15 portrays the actors and the process involved in constructing the politicians’ personal brands. The persona is negotiated by an individual themselves, their representative agents, media producers, and other individuals. Online, this persona in the political campaign context is marketed and communicated through the active selling of the persona. The campaign context defines the communication platforms and actors. This combination then results in the politician's personal brand which also exists outside the campaign periods. But during campaign periods, the communicative actions are enforced to ensure exposure and electorate engagement. The ideal personal brand is therefore a result of the process of creating, positioning and maintaining a positive impression of self (Gorbatov, Khapova & Lysova, 2018). 120 Acta Wasaensia Figure 15. The process of forming a politician’s personal brand Whether we look at identity as a story or as a process, we can identify some key elements that help define personas. Identity has a layer-like nature. It can, to some extent, be re-negotiated, and it is portrayed as a persona distinctively dependent on the community, channel, and the individual in question. The collective adds its interpretation and perceptions of the individual. It also decides whether the individual is interesting at all and gets attention in the collective discussion. The channel defines whether the persona is negotiated in the form of pictures, length of text, style, reach, and audience. The individual decides what they share and can try to some extent to manage their profiles, while their identity, personality, background, character, and interests, in the end, define the possibilities and base from which their persona is negotiated online. Turkle’s (1995) definition of identity as being about everything, what one links to pages, one's interest, and what is visible in their profiles and forums actually describes a persona. This idea is applied in search of politicians' personal brands on Facebook, and what is on the posts and comments is all part of the brand. But it is not about changing persona, as seen in Turkle's (1995) findings with adolescents. Rather it is about highlighting and hiding particular aspects and attributes. This can be done by choosing specific channels for interaction and informing, choosing what to share, managing the public debate, and choosing the availability and access of content to the electorate. In relation to selling ideas or trying to appeal for votes, personal brand construction and its success can partly be evaluated through engagement with the content. !"#$%&' !"#$%$#&'( )*+,- .&/($0 1,#$'2 .-3#&0,-4 5,.-,4,"*'*$ %,2&4,-4 (&)*&"+ ,"#$%&' 6'7.'$8"2 63"*,9* !"#$%&$'())*+, 6'7.'$8"2 6377&"$0'*$3"2 !%)*-*.*'&/$+ ,"#$%&')+ 0#'&1 -%../+*"0#*%+$ 1)0#&%2.3$0+4$ !"#%23 Acta Wasaensia 121 There are two significant factors for the development of the concept of politicians’ personal brands. The first is the personalization of politics which has led to the need for politicians to construct and benefit from a strong political brand. The second is the increased use of social media, which, although it has not sparked the idea, has a significant role in deepening and establishing the process and development of constructing personal brands. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 200) discuss industrialized agency as another term for self-branding. This requires individuals to consciously and actively construct their power, role, and position in their fields and networks. So far, they do not see personal brand as being incorporated into every profession. For example, doctors and academics have not gone very far with self-branding. However, their suggestion is to study the attention economy and influencers to learn more about self-branding, and they also share the premise of this study about social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, in facilitating personal brand construction. Concluding from the introduced research, the core definitions used in this study are as follows: Identity is a solid presentation, the core of an individual, with no consideration of objective interpretation, including all registers of the persona. Persona is the public presentation of these, where conscious choices have been made to only include some aspects from mainly professional and private spheres. The concept of personal brand to be used later in this study is equivalent to persona, with an added idea of sellable self, modified from Marshall and Henderson's (2016: 2) definition of persona as "a fictive public identity drawn from elements of one's individuality but designed for public use" that is negotiated collectively. In the politician's case, the idea of selling is included, and in the context of campaign communication, it is enforced with the voters thought of as consumers who are buying the candidate (Kumar, Dhamija & Dhamija, 2016). This definition also describes the strategic personal brand construction, and a personal brand is something knowingly constructed to influence a targeted audience. Some politicians form their brand through professionality by building a political career where their political knowledge and experience makes them more recognized among the electorate. However, (and as previously mentioned), there are politicians with a background, for example in the entertainment industry, whose political career was born out of being first known for something completely different (Herkman, 2011: 104). This study investigates professional content in relation to explicitly political content like legislation, campaigning, or other political issues. Other non-political content like family, free-time and 122 Acta Wasaensia entertainment is referred to as private content, while health, love life and other personal issues such as religion are considered as intimate content. However, these are all considered as essential parts of personal brand construction for politicians. Leading from Marshall, Moore and Barbour’s (2020: 190) academic self and the original reviewed literature, the preliminary analysis in this study shows six types of selves in political persona, through which Finnish politicians can be categorized based on their Facebook content. As this applies to the specific election campaign period, the results may vary, and some personas can fade while others are emphasized outside of election campaign periods. These personas can also be intertwined, with some more present in different parts of the campaign than others. For example, towards the end of the campaign, candidates tend to negotiate their personal feelings and close ones more on their posts. Also, some representations of self may become more assertive with particular topics. The representations of political persona and the different types of self are shown in Figure 16. These will be deliberated in my analysis, and I will present the completed final model of brand type representations in my discussion in Chapter 7. As Figure 16 shows, the informing self remains more ad-like by nature, and there is neutral information on the campaign-trail and possible media appearances, typical to one-way communication that informs the public, often used in social media (see "imunjak 2018). The listening self promotes dialogue, provides the constituents questions, and encourages them to send in their questions. Here, the candidate also replies to the electorate and is actively present, showing that they follow the public pulse and use it for agenda-setting. The topic-orientated self is similar to the topic politician introduced by Isotalus and Almonkari (2011). This persona communicates topic issues, can present longer, thoroughly argumented texts, and discusses policies in social media. They also give wider information on topic issues and present multiple dimensions of politics and decision-making. The personal self negotiates private, even intimate topics on their social media. This can vary in the level of depth of intimacy, but often, i.e., family members or private life matters are negotiated with ease. Feelings are naturally expressed related to the topics that are discussed, and the communication resembles that of a private profile and the comments have a resemblance to those written to friends. The networked self focuses on mobilizing the electorate and showing a connection, for example, through virtual back-patting (see Svensson, 2014) and exploiting the party leader's exposure and brand. The networked self also uses the exposure to recruit volunteers and donors through social media. Also, party agenda promotion is central in the communication, and sometimes the party voice is stronger than the individual politician's voice. Acta Wasaensia 123 Figure 16. Political persona and different types of self The professional self communicates dynamically in multiple dimensions. They promote the campaign, but do it on a more personal level communicating their persona and negotiating their credibility through their profession as a background for their political role. Examples might be a business CEO managing budget negotiations, or a former athlete managing sports representation issues. Private issues are only brought up if they relate to topic issues, for example, motherhood as part of understanding family planning and welfare related to families. The private dimension, sometimes even intimate, is used only concerning politics and topic issues, where it benefits the politician in creating an illusion of authenticity, authority, or credibility (Figure 16). Identity in real life is negotiated through interactions, and online, it is a plethora of interactions. The arena can indeed become global with the possibilities the online world offers. This identity concept is not about pseudonymity, but more about continuous formations and recreation. Turkle's (1995: 10) identity game is about creating alternate personalities. However, the focus of this study is on constructing a personal brand through the persona of existing identity. When discussing persona in this study, it is regarded as separate from pseudonymity or other situations where false identities are constructed. This research considers brands, personas, and identities in relation to real personas – in this case, personas with established recognition – and analyses how they negotiate their personas and how others contribute to that negotiation. However, it needs to be remembered that sometimes a professional persona, especially the one which is publicly presented, can be different, or a more carefully and strategically constructed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cta Wasaensia representation, from the private person; hence the use of the term persona. A professional persona is constructed for a specific purpose, even for a particular audience. In this study, I am looking at political personas, more specifically candidates, who use their public self-representations to appeal to the electorate. Acta Wasaensia 125 4! RESEARCHING PERSONAL BRAND CONSTRUCTION ON FACEBOOK Online discussions have become central in election campaigning because they gather significant exposure and can similarly affect perceptions and views as do campaign advertisements (Diehl, Weeks & Zúñiga, 2015). If Rudd’s (2016) argument that the image of an individual politician can be a more substantial factor in voting decisions than the parties’ values or stance in policies also applies in Finland, it is significant to understanding personal brands and how they can be constructed and utilized by both candidates and the public. Campaign communication develops continuously, so new research is needed on the topic. Since 2010, social media has been part of the campaigning of all major parties and politicians in Finland, and the number of people following campaigning and news through social media is increasing. The use of social media by politicians in Finland has mainly been studied with quantitative analysis focusing on Twitter (Comet, 2014; Vainikka & Huhtamäki, 2015). Qualitative research in the field of political communication has been called for (Mokhtar, 2017), and this study addresses that call. The approach of analyzing content and what is actually said has also been done by Larsson (2015a) in regard to Norwegian political communication on Facebook. Thus, I contribute to the research on Finnish political candidates, the public, and their online communication during campaigning. While the internet does not have a significant role in forming political core values, it affects the forming of opinions on individual politicians and topics (Hoff, 2010). Mokhtar (2017) also emphasizes the importance of image and identity in political brand communication, so supporting the original idea of this study. Especially, understanding the communication that takes place between the public and political candidates is important as professional campaigning shifts even more towards social media channels. I start this chapter by presenting the research problem in section 4.1. The analysis model and methodology are explained in 4.2. In section 4.3, I explain the data collection process and the research method used for the analysis. The deliberation of credibility, validity, and reliability central to this research is described in section 4.4, and the ethical considerations for the study are presented in the last section. 4.1! Analyzing Social Media and Personal Brands Since my theoretical framework is modified from different lines of thinking and the analysis combines quantitative and qualitative methods with a prominent focus on the latter, they are summarized here in relation to the research questions 126 Acta Wasaensia and discussed in terms of how each contributes to answering each question. The questions and the route to achieve each aim are presented in Figure 17. Figure 17. Research Questions Research questions 1 and 2 concern the posts and comments of politicians’ Facebook pages, and how a politician’s personal brand is constructed in them by the candidates themselves and the public that is participating in the discussions on the page. 1.! How are these brands constructed in politicians' Facebook posts? 2.! How are these brands constructed in the comments to these posts? The more specific questions that guide the analysis and help to define answers for the two main questions are: a)! What kind of content is produced by politicians on their public page posts? b)! What kind of content is produced in the comments by the public in the comments on the page? c)! How does the public engage with the politicians' posts? d)! What kind of brand representations of politicians manifest in the posts? e)! What kind of brand representations of a politician manifest in the comments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cta Wasaensia 127 f)! How are the dimensions of professional, private, and intimate negotiated in the content? The analysis consists of four phases. The first phase is the initial data browse, reading the data to gain an overview of whether the chosen analysis units and frames function for the analysis, and what needs to be added to the analysis. After this phase, both frames were accordingly modified. The dual actor model also required deliberation in regard to the chosen operationalization approaches, and this also affected the analysis. Secondly, after the initial phase, a more careful analysis is carried out regarding the categorization of content. This first analysis was done through quantitative analysis with an operationalization modified from Nelimarkka et al. (2020). This offers a deeper quantitative perspective of how the content of the page is characterized and what it can be used for. It also helps to determine how much personal content in relation to other content, specifically on topic issues, there is in the data for both the candidates' posts and the public's comments. This way, the idea of sharing professional and private can be viewed in relation to the data as a whole. The third phase is the manual analysis of the content using the modified operationalization from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012). For this, example texts are collected and the results are presented in chapters 5 and 6 with their analysis. In the background, the idea of Facebook affordances has been considered for both the candidates and the public, which contributes to determining the use and benefits of Facebook in campaign communication and personal brand construction. The manual analysis rounds are repeated to ensure the validity of the study. Answering these questions maps the route for examining what is happening in Finnish campaign discussions on Facebook, and how politicians' personal brands are discussed in this context. Personal brands are usually not constructed in a void nor as a separate issue. Therefore, to understand them in this context, it is essential to portray their construction in relation to the context as a whole. However, it is also essential to recognize that the public only view parts of the discussion. Therefore the content is analyzed mainly as separate messages and what is expressed in them, instead of as complete comment threads. The fourth and final discussion in Chapter 7 draws the above stages together, allowing conclusions to be drawn as to how politicians' personal brands are constructed, negotiated, and utilized in Facebook during an election campaign in Finland. The earlier discussed theoretical framework is applied along with the 128 Acta Wasaensia persona dimensions model from Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020) to present the brand type representations of politicians recognized on Facebook. 4.2! Analysis Models and Methodology Defining a functioning analysis operationalization for the content of candidates' pages and finding how their personal brand is constructed on the posts and comments during an election campaign is challenging. Partly because there is a gap in the research related to both Finnish political communication on Facebook and brand construction in campaign communication, and also because brand construction, the personal brands of politicians, and also social media develop rapidly. Thus, research is needed where new types of methodologies and a combined approach to fields and methods are applied. The theoretical framework in this study combines recent ideas on the representation of self and the personalization of politics. These are further modified to provide a model for studying the politicians' brand constructions in Facebook. An important starting point is Marshall, Moore and Barbour’s (2015; 2020) work focusing on studying production, dissemination, and public identity exchange. This provides the baseline that celebrities and public personalities all need, in order to manage how they produce, spread and negotiate representations of their persona. The development of persona in this study is discussed through the personalization dimensions presented by Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012), which considers that a politician's personal brand is not constructed in a void, and results from continuous interactions and active meaning-making and giving. This framework is then placed in the context of social media, which provides an ideal stage where interaction is direct, access is not limited, and the information flow is easy and conducted in real-time. This exploratory study has an approach closely linked to grounded theory where data is considered in various ways, and the analysis starts from the data instead of proving a theory right or wrong (Glaser & Strauss, 1999: 101–116; Lawrence & Tar, 2013). Here, the election discussion is understood as the phenomenon that will be analyzed in-depth, and which contributes to further understanding the concept of a politician's personal brand. The analysis is based on a qualitative close-reading of the Facebook posts and comments, with a supportive quantitative aspect of engagement and content. Applying both qualitative and quantitative content- analysis contributes to understanding the relevance and magnitude of the phenomenon; namely the social media posts and discussion, and the engagement that takes place during election campaigns. This research approach is associated Acta Wasaensia 129 with the hermeneutic-phenomenological philosophy of science, and the aim is to create a holistic understanding of campaign communication on social media, specifically Facebook. With this close data-based content analysis, indicators for a politician's brand construction are identified and used for interpreting the data. This empirical analysis shows how the communication on politicians’ Facebook pages can be structured, categorized, and analyzed (Krippendorff, 2019: 86–95), and how professional, private, and intimate domains are negotiated. It needs to be remembered that while private life issues like family or hobbies are not explicitly political, then referred to in the politicians' case as professional, they might be precisely that because politicians' brands are constructed through everything they do. This challenge of distinction is interesting, and perhaps needs to be considered more as an opportunity than a problem. The unit of analysis used in this study is one post, or one comment to a post. These units are then categorized and structured, links between them identified, and possible patterns used to build a theory of the different manifestations of a politician's personal brand. Analyzing isolated social media messages which are networked by nature (Krippendorff, 2019: 35) is challenging. In online discussions, the flow of communication is typically non-rhythmic, topics tend to change within themes, and topics and comments are disregarded (Laaksonen & Matikainen, 2013: 208) or do not necessarily follow argumentation patterns. In this analysis, the categorizing process is the most relevant in answering the research questions and providing the necessary information on the phenomenon without interruption from the researcher (Hakala & Vesa, 2013: 221, 223). Since the researcher cannot predict what kind of elements and text will be produced in an online discussion, it is more fitting to have a data-based content analysis where the categories are defined a posteriori and rising from the data, instead of being set a priori, prior to the analysis phase. The data-based content analysis leaves an opportunity to follow up and adapt new categorizations of the content that politicians produce or how the public discuss them. In content analysis, the aim is to describe the data and its core content and to bring out the most relevant (Hakala & Vesa, 2013: 218). This way, the chosen analysis method allows the researcher to find new possible leads on the topic. The chosen method resembles an iterative method, which refers to the type of research where an initial hypothesis is formed and tested, then modified and tested again as needed (Yom, 2015). In this way, the research process is cyclic, not linear, and like a spiral that corrects itself. 130 Acta Wasaensia The theoretical framework was modified using operationalizations and models as an inspiration, and the preliminary model is presented in Figure 16. While the analysis in Nelimarkka et al. (2020) was performed by random sampling on a more extensive data set, the manual content analysis in this study has been carried out on the complete dataset. However, a change in the election year and the pages selected for data acquisition, and a different research focus justify the need for modifications to their original operationalizations and explain some significant differences with earlier research. Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) focus on individual politicians in media, and separate personalization into two dimensions: individualization and privatization (presented in Figure 1). Individualization refers to the increased focus on individual politicians at the expense of parties or policies. This is further divided into general visibility and concentrated visibility. General visibility means that the exposure is generally attached to individual politicians, while concentrated visibility describes the exposure being attached to political leaders, such as the prime minister or party leaders. Likewise, privatization has two dimensions. The detailed focus on personal characteristics includes evaluating the politician's personal attributes and characteristics, and the revelation of private life centers around their social relationships, hobbies, or childhood. Applying this framework, Isotalus and Almonkari (2011) identify two categories in Finnish politicians in traditional media: the charmer politician and the topic politician. My study elaborates this division into the communication carried out on Facebook and the concept of personal brand construction. The operationalization for analyzing the interaction between candidates and constituents in the parliamentary election of 2015 by Nelimarkka et al. (2020) provides a starting point for the data's content analysis categories. Their approach was in the interaction, and their focus was on the conversation chains instead of individual posts and comments like those featured in this study. There can also be changes from the conditions of 2015 in the way that the 2019 election campaign communication takes place on Facebook, so care has been taken to modify the coding as the data is analyzed. Rapid changes in platforms and audiences can further change the kind of content that is produced, so four years can change online campaign communication. A significant modification is the addition of performance evaluation of the politician for television debates because the initial reading through of the data showed the prominent visibility of this type of content where the politicians’ appearances on debates are analyzed and commented on for almost every candidate. These sometimes include comments on their rhetorical skills, leadership, or looks, which supports the privatization dimension from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012), and are essential for the personal brand Acta Wasaensia 131 construction by the public because they directly communicate aspects of the candidate's persona. These two analysis operationalizations are used for the quantitative analysis, and further developed with a qualitative content analysis based on the political self model presented in Figure 14, and also on the affordances of Facebook. The exposure and publicity of a political person are approached through Street’s (2014) definitions and idea of the phenomenon of a 'celebrity politician'. Politicians and candidates act in two ways. First, they can use their popularity and celebrity status to speak for public opinion, and second, they can establish their claims using elements of celebrity. The other type of celebrity politician identified by Street is a public figure who uses their publicity to promote political views, but does not seek political power or office. The selected candidates for this study are considered under the first type of celebrity politicians, and they are selected because of this. In the study, celebrity is understood similarly to Street (2004), although politicians are not necessarily celebrities in the traditional definition of the word. Street defines celebrities as those who have more comprehensive representation via mass media than the rest of the population. However, an update for this is needed with regard to the inclusion of social media (Figure 13). The politicians chosen in this study have already had many followers on social media and had exposure on mass media at the beginning of the campaign period, either because of their professional status or for other reasons guaranteeing considerable exposure. Therefore, they are seen as possessing a political personal brand that can be identified and characterized. However, no studies are currently available to show how this can be observed in their Facebook communication. In the study, using Markham's (2011) categorization, the internet is studied both as a tool where it is used to collect and analyze data that develops in one platform, and as a context for the socio-cultural phenomenon. The latter describes the types of use and discussions that take place online. Inline with the categorization by Laaksonen, Matikainen and Tikka (2013: 18), this study explores the online world as a combination of a tool as a means to gather data and analyze it; as a source showing the interaction taking place through an online channel; and as an object in terms of the Facebook channel and its public politician profile pages that are being studied. A fourth category, the place, is the Facebook platform itself, where the analyzed posts and comments are collected for this study. This research approach shares similarities with netnography, which is the term used to describe the ethnographic research carried out on network communities (Isomäki, Lappi & Silvennoinen, 2013, 158; Hine, 2017). However, the critical difference is that in the arenas of research, profile pages are not considered a 132 Acta Wasaensia community. Instead, they consist of individual commentators who do not necessarily belong to, for example, only opposing or supporting positions as a group. Some users may only produce one comment, while others may follow the forum actively and become participants on the profile page. Also, the followers of these pages have different motives for their following. Some might follow a politician as a journalist, and some might be looking for opposing arguments to their personal political views. Others can be supporters, or, for example, family members or other close ones. Some followers may have simply chosen to like the page or follow it by accident. Laaksonen, Matikainen and Tikka (2013: 26) state that the online world requires new viewpoints and bold approaches to data collection and analysis. This study aims to respond to their call through a combination of methods, forming a base with manual data-based content analysis, and adding an application of digital methods specifically in relation to data collection, where quantitative analysis supports the qualitative focus in the analysis. This type of manual content analysis on a politician's Facebook page is rare. A recent study by Metz, Kruikemeier and Lecheler (2020) was based on a similar analysis of 435 posts using a similar theoretical framework. However, their study focused on politician's self- personalization, and the "personalization politicians do to themselves" (see McGregor, 2017), whereas this study also includes the role and comments of the public. As Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 113, 124, 126) conclude, researching persona means exploring the production process, sharing information, and the public presentation of identity. They also suggest looking into prosographic field studies (PFS) to study the development and spread of reputation and status by analyzing both biographical and digital network data. According to them, persona studies requires the development of methods because the field is new, and it relates to several fields of research. This multi-disciplinary approach is also typical of social media research (Laaksonen, Matikainen & Tikka, 2013: 20) and called for in the field of political communication (Strömbäck, 2021). Especially, as the data sets are multiple, their variance sets a challenge for finding methods that do not require extensive resources to develop the field and increase persona research. Marshall, Moore, and Barbour (2020: 116) suggest that phenomenology, especially IPA (Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis), could help us understand persona construction as a strategically formed public discourse. This study aims at just that, and consideration is also given to the position and background of the researcher as issues that can affect the interpretation. However, my approach is more comprehensive, and data-based content analysis will be developed as a new Acta Wasaensia 133 persona research method. As an aspect of expert researcher knowledge, I possess previous knowledge of the candidates and have followed media discussions on them, so I have a deeper understanding of the issues referenced in the data than someone else who may view posts and comments as a unique case. Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 116) point out that instead of generalizing findings, it is more important to obtain specific results and interpretations. Thus, I further posit that pre-existing knowledge can strengthen the analysis and contribute to a better understanding of the data. The text-focused approach to posts and comments poses a challenge when dealing with links, emojis, pictures, and other images (Laaksonen & Matikainen, 2013: 207). This study will exclude links and images, but will consider emojis when they are used as part of a comment, for example, for signifying irony. Comments that only include an emoji, are excluded from the analysis, to avoid possible misinterpretations. Links are also excluded because the discussion is approached through the idea of what the public see immediately in Facebook, without clicking themselves into additional pages, for example, through the content on their feed. Analyzing images would require visual analysis methods, so photos and videos included in the posts and comments are excluded from the analysis. Similarly, comments that cannot be categorized within the coding frame, for example because of foreign language use or unclear interpretation, will be included in the total number of comments, but left out of the qualitative analysis. When presenting my analysis in chapters 5 and 6, I provide citations from the data. Since the data is in Finnish or Swedish, I translate the examples as literally as possible, including original typing errors such as small letters. The original citations with their comments are presented in Appendices 2 and 3. These citations may include context-specific details which are not explained thoroughly. These explanations are provided when they are necessary for understanding the functions of the posts and comments. 4.3! Data Collection The data used in this study consists of all of the posts and comments on the selected candidates' Facebook pages placed during the campaign period of 14.3.2019– 14.4.2019. This period was chosen because the candidates had to announce their candidacy on the 14th of March 2019 at the latest, and the election day was on the 14th of April 2019. While many candidates had started campaigning earlier, at this time, the campaigning was most active, and all the candidates were clearly 134 Acta Wasaensia involved in campaigning. In total, the data includes 16,175 Facebook posts and comments. Table 2 shows the number of votes received by the candidates (Eduskuntavaalit, 2019), and the number of posts, comments and reactions for each candidate in the data. The vote count is included to provide an understanding of how successful each candidate was in the election. The number of posts and comments in the manual analysis differ from the numbers that the collection program Facepager produces for the data (Jünger & Keyling, 2019), and this mainly results from moderated content and privacy settings that result in blank result lines when the data is fetched. Table 2. The data in numbers and vote count for the candidates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ampaigning keeps both candidates and the public more active and alert on political issues. Campaigns reflect their periods, and present a narrative on politicians, parties, and the electorate through different communicative acts such as television debates, campaign posters, media articles, campaign events, and social media posts and discussions. Previous campaigns cannot be neglected, but each campaign is built on its own agenda, main themes, and representing Acta Wasaensia 135 individuals and its context. Sometimes, for example, slogans stick and live on, but often parties start fresh and build strategies that learn from the past. While I agree with Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 289–303) that especially for already elected representatives, the campaign period is not separate from the time they are already in the parliament but more an ongoing communication process with the electorate, the focus in the analysis in this study is on the so-called ‘hot’ campaign period, one month preceding the official election day. The candidates chosen to be included in the data were selected on the basis of two criteria. They were either vote-pullers or party leaders from parties that were currently in the parliament. This meant that the collected data included the relevant, more visible parties, meaning those parties that got enough votes to be elected in the election of 2015. The exception for this is the Blue Reform party led by candidate Terho in the data, as a party that separated from the Finns Party in the middle of the parliament season of 2015-2019. Also, a current parliament member and vote-puller candidate Harkimo from the National Coalition Party started a political movement called Movement Now, and ran as a candidate for that party during the election of 2019. The data was collected using a program called Facepager, which had the API rights to fetch data from public pages (Jünger & Keyling, 2019). The data consists of ten candidates who got the most votes in the parliamentary election of 2019, and the party leaders for all nine current parliamentary parties. Some of these are the same individuals. The decision to collect the data from the Facebook pages of party leaders was based on the idea that they are often considered as a significant resource in attracting voters (von Schoultz, 2016). Also, Isotalus and Almonkari (2012) note that the personas of political leaders are most important to the media. On the other hand, vote-pullers can be generally be considered to be attractive and well exposed to the public, and successful in their campaign communication based on the significant number of votes they receive. The information for the candidates in the data presented in Table 3 has been collected from the website of the Finnish parliament, where the CVs and current information for each parliament member are presented. The information has come from the politicians themselves, which explains differences in their background representations. The diversity among the candidates implies that there will be different types of representations of political persona, diverging styles of using Facebook as a platform, and also varied commenting from the public. There are both male and female, fairly young and older people, and a variety in political background, education level, and general background demographics. 136 Acta Wasaensia Table 3. Background of the candidates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cta Wasaensia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`3.+! K)0#/)!O+/#9! EH!HGG! EFHE! R+2)! R+*#)/!$1!T'&)0')! &0!M0,&0))/&0,-! KMW!*#+#3*! O+/2&+()0#!()(6)/! BQEE\]-!O/&()!(&0&*#)/! BQED\BQEF-!O+/#9!2)+4)/! BQEB\]! ! ?+7&$!a&22)! U&00*!O+/#9! EC!FDI! EFGC! R+2)! @+:9)/-!)0#/)%/)0)3/! O+/2&+()0#!()(6)/!BQED! \]! ! ?)/.$! T+(%$! Y23)! X)1$/(! J!EEG! EFII! R+2)! R+*#)/!$1!A/#*! O+/2&+()0#!()(6)/! BQED\BQEF-!R&0&*#)/! BQEI\EQEF-!O+/#9!2)+4)/! ! Z9*;$:&'[! Y)0! SKO! EB!DDH! EFDC! R+2)! Y+'.)2$/!$1!@+:! O+/2&+()0#!()(6)/!EFIF! \]! ! 138 Acta Wasaensia Candidate Jussi Halla-aho, the Finns Party leader, only maintains his political persona on Facebook through a private profile. The lack of public page at the time of data collection forced him to be excluded from the data. There are two reasons for the exclusion of the profile feed. First, the API restricts the collection of the data from personal profiles. At the beginning of the process, it was considered that a manual collection would be carried out. However, after careful consideration of social media research ethics, this profile was excluded from the study as individual profiles should be treated as personal data. Also, according to Facebook's terms of use, political activity can only be carried on political pages that are public, and not through personal profiles. Excluding Halla-aho, regardless of whether he is seen as a strong communicator and considered a strong personal brand in the Finnish political scene, will not affect the party presentation, and there are still pages from two other politicians representing The Finns party in the data. However, Halla-aho is presented in Table 4 because he is referred to in the data and discussed widely in the comments. Therefore, he needs to be introduced in the same way as the other candidates. Table 4. The excluded candidate Jussi Halla-aho 6M#5#' 4+,*0*+5.' 6+"5K' F#5.&' C.+"'#(' 70"5M' !.,*."' D+-2N"#$,*' A+50#,+8'6#8050-+8'-+".."' ! P+22+\+.$! `3**&! U&00*!O+/#9! JQ!DBI! EFIE! R+2)! L$'#$/!$1! O.&2$*$%.9! O+/2&+()0#!()(6)/! BQEE\BQED-!O+/#9!2)+4)/! For additional information on the content production side, on April 2020, I sent an e-mail to the party offices or parliamentary assistants of the candidates, asking about the Facebook content production of the candidates during the election of 2019. The replies are presented in Table 5, and those who did not respond are presented in Table 6. Out of 18 candidates in the data, there were replies regarding 10 candidates from either their personal assistants or the party office. They were asked whether it was the candidate themselves, their campaign office or an outside communication agency posting the content and monitoring the comments on the page. The use of these possible post ghostwriters has been called “postwriting” in the UK study of Sabag Ben-Porat and Lehman-Wilzig (2019), finding that several politicians had parliamentary assistants write at least some of their posts on their behalf. However, the replies I received from most of the candidates in this study did not align with the UK study. Acta Wasaensia 139 I also asked whether there were strategic guidelines of practice on approaching the comments; e.g. whether they are always replied to, never replied to, or replied to in certain cases, and how they were replied to. For some candidates, there was no reply, so the table just shows either a “No reply” statement or the general guidelines stated by the party office or the party website. The replies follow a similar pattern. None of the parties stated to be using exterior communication agencies for their social media content. The candidates were mainly planning their own social media communication, especially on Facebook. Some candidates got help from the party office (and these were mainly party leaders), or they produced their Facebook posts together with their parliamentary assistants. Usually the assistants would proof read, help with the visualization, or do the actual writing even though the content planning and the text was coming from the candidates themselves. Most parties stated that they recommend interaction on social media and encourage the candidates to reply to all comments, recognizing the limitation for example in time resources when there are a lot comments and the candidate carries the responsibility for their social media on their own. The National Coalition Party stated as their aim to be “the leading interaction party”. Also, the Social Democratic Party have their social media guidelines publicly available on their party website and highlighted the importance of replying to the comments. The Green Party was the only party commenting that the team moderates hate speech and harmful content from their and candidates’ own channels. The Finns Party was the only party distancing the party from the candidate's own content production, stating that each of their candidates “is responsible for their own social media communication”. (Table 5.) 140 Acta Wasaensia Table 5. Content production of responding candidates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cta Wasaensia 141 Table 6. Non-respondent candidates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able 6 shows the candidates for whom there is no information on their content production. For the social democratic party, some information was found on their website where the guidelines for the social media of politicians and party are described. The data was collected on the 27th of April and the 30th of April, 2019. It was first downloaded into .csv-files, after which it was transformed into Excel files. The data was stored on the researcher's personal computer and an external backup hard drive to collect the originals. The data files were secured with a password. The data consists of 18 candidates introduced in Table 3, their public Facebook profile pages, posts, comments, shares, and reactions. On Facebook, pages and profiles have ids, and these page ids are used to identify the pages as nodes on Facepager. The ids for the public pages that were included in the data are presented in Appendix 1. The collection fetches were made from posts, comments of posts, reactions, and shares for each page. The program calculates reactions automatically for each page (Jünger & Keyling, 2019) and these were used for the quantitative analysis. The different reaction types at the time of collection were "like" (!"#$), "love" (!), "amazement/wow" ( !%&'), "laughter" ( !)*+,-./), "sad face" ( !01234), and "anger" (!5678). Hayes et al. (2016) regard these reactions as single-click cues describing as much of the sender-receiver relationship as other content. 142 Acta Wasaensia Facepager is an open-source code data fetching program available online on GitHub (Jünger & Keyling, 2019). It can be used to collect data from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other networking services. It uses the networking site's API and fetches data through that. In Facebook's case, the program has once been restricted from fetching data from September 8th 2019 until December 2019. Then, the active developers of the program convinced Facebook to open its API for Facepager users through a new application process, thus allowing public data to be fetched again with the program. Several researchers and scientific research organizations such as Social Science One are trying to persuade Facebook away from restricting its API and allow data collection for scientific research (Social Science One, 2021). As in this study, their aim is to understand patterns of behavior in social media, thereby contextualizing the phenomena occurring on and because of social media. Facepager can only be used for public pages on Facebook (Jünger & Keyling, 2019), and the API restricts fetching personal data, such as names and other identification information. Therefore, on Facebook, it is only possible to fetch posts, anonymous comments, and reactions by numbers and text content. This feature excludes methods like network analysis from the research possibilities permitted by Facebook. So far, there is a limited amount of tools for automated Facebook data collection, which is one limiting factor in Facebook research and analysis. However, there is a growing range of digital research methods (Rogers 2019; Rieder, 2020) where different coding languages and applications can be used to collect data from social media channels. But so far, automated data collection from Facebook is limited to Facepager which is open to everyone, and Crowdtangle (2021), which is Facebook’s own tool open to academic researchers through an application process. 4.4! Credibility, Validity and Reliability There are 16,175 posts and comments and reactions to them in the data, so minor changes in the data will not have a significant impact on the results. In order to ensure the repeatability and reliability of this study, the process of data collection has been explained in detail in section 4.3. However, social media posts can be subsequently modified, erased, and added. Hence, the data is only entirely valid for the collection period if assessed from the viewpoint of matching data requirements. The restrictions of the Facebook algorithm and limitations of collecting data with Facepager are reflected upon in the process (Franzke et al., 2020). While I tested Acta Wasaensia 143 new methodologies in this study, the overall validity of the study was ensured by employing a critical approach (Laaksonen, Matikainen & Tikka, 2013: 26). This critical approach was also taken when assessing the data, the theoretical framework, and the significance of the findings. These, together with the detailed ethical deliberation presented in the next chapter, have been applied to ensure integrity, authenticity, credibility, and criticality (see Whittemore, Chase and Mandle, 2011). In this study, the data and analysis are presented with several examples to ensure the transparency of the process. Creativity has been applied in producing novel methodological designs for analysis, and needed modifications have been made to the design through several data analysis rounds (Whittemore, Chase & Mandle 2011). To promote authenticity (Sandelowski, 1986; Bailey, 1996), I explain the relevant media connections and phenomena needed to understand the content of the posts and comments in the examples which are presented with the analysis. The potential for researcher bias is considered by ensuring that there were no political ties between the researcher and the candidates. I took no part in the discussion nor performed any other communicative actions on the pages, for example activating the politicians with questions. While I followed media coverage on the election during the campaign, I followed no particular candidates more than any others. In this way, as a researcher, I have aimed to approach the data as would any citizen who would see the online discussion. However, during the analysis, I have considered how my background and earlier knowledge might affect my interpretation (Marshall, 1990). To ensure the validity of the findings, it is critical to recognize the affordances of each platform and how the platform affects and shapes communication (Castells, 2009). For example, Facebook has specific types of reactions for the public to engage with the posts (Venturini et al., 2018). Thus, only a limited expression of engagement is available. In addition to this, I discuss Facebook’s monetizing functions, and their possible effect on my research and data. My analysis is grounded in the data, which supports the validity of my interpretation, and the context and its effect on the findings are considered in the research process. I recognize that campaign communication takes place on various platforms and not just on Facebook (see also Venturini et al., 2018). Nevertheless, the focus in this study is on Facebook and how that particular platform is used by the candidates and the public in constructing politicians' personal brands. The choice to focus on Facebook was made based on the large number of active Facebook users who are eligible to vote, and also the visibility of political commenting on the platform. Thus, there is a perceived relevance of the platform for political 144 Acta Wasaensia communication in the Finnish context. In the discussions for research development presented in section 7.4.2, I describe how the methodology is transferable to other contexts and how I have operationalized the framework used earlier in other contexts to apply to my own (Pandey & Patnaik, 2014). The data is presented as it was in the collection phase. Any removed parts resulting from altered length or texts that include private individual's names have been marked with four lines (----). This way, I also consider that a sensitive approach is taken towards those who have written the comments in the data, while maintaining the validity of the data (Whittemore, Chase & Mandle 2001). The representativeness of social media data does not apply to all populations (Franzke et al., 2020), and applies only to those using social media. The limitation of this dimension is considered through two main issues: 1) The focus of the questions is on Facebook, and the study is limited to considering Facebook communication. 2) The data has been collected only from vote-pullers and party leaders, which is considered throughout the analysis process and noted in the final discussion. Importantly, there are no expectations or claims that the collected data would apply to and represent the vast field of campaign communication and large number of candidates. The data has been purposefully selected to answer the research questions, and the representativeness of the data was considered when setting the aim of the study. Hence, the exposure and recognition of the chosen candidates was set as a prerequisite for answering the research questions. To ensure credibility, I describe my analysis with various representative examples from the data, thus showing how I come to my findings. Also, the quantitative analysis of the data is presented in chapter 7.4, with tables presenting the number of different types of engagement found in the data, so establishing trust in the interpretation of the data by reinforcement (Carboni, 1995). This way, my findings can be assessed and re-deliberated in future studies. The qualitative focus in my method has allowed me to study my topic with depth, and gives specific information on politicians' personal brands on Facebook in the Finnish campaign context. However, the ethical approaches in managing and analyzing online discussion data that includes thousands of users and their texts have been given extensive consideration in accordance with the IRE 3.0 guidelines (Franzke et al., 2020), and are deliberated next. 4.5! Ethical Considerations Ethical guidelines suitable for application to this study have been published by the Association of Internet Researchers in 2019. Their IRE 3.0 guideline (the most Acta Wasaensia 145 recent guideline for internet research ethics) addresses the problem of informed consent, which is an issue in this study since the posting and commenting individuals whose texts are analyzed in the data were not informed about the study prior to or after the data collection. The research framework supports the interest in the texts as a complete dataset instead of individual posts related to their writer (Franzke et al., 2020). Ensuring the anonymity of the discussants supports the considerations of privacy issues. Markham and Buchanan (2017: 201–202) remind us that the rapid development of digital media requires researchers in the field to revisit their ethical considerations and their application of new methods and data to meet the ethical guidelines of research. Also, a degree of flexibility is needed in adjusting the core ethical principles and applying them to digital media research. This has been the guiding principle in my work, and these guidelines have been reconsidered with reference to the decisions taken on data and the research questions, and again with Facebook closing the API after my data collection and reopening it a few months later. My primary ethical consideration is one that Mancosu and Vergetti (2020) urge researchers to consider with Facebook: that no harm is caused to the individuals producing the texts that are analyzed or made public, and that no sensitive information is shared about individuals. The data needs to be analyzed with consideration of the intimacy and sensitivity of the data, and how public it has been originally meant to be produced (Paasonen, 2013: 51). In the data, the individuals do not generally express any personal information or anything intimate about themselves, except for their opinions on the politicians or political topics. Also, even though the field is in political communication, the study is not politically sensitive in its content (Franzke et al., 2020). According to my reasoning, the topic of the study should not cause controversy, thereby being less likely to cause harm to the researcher since the aim is not to judge political behavior or measure political ideas in any way. Furthermore, the comments are not analyzed in relation to their writers, and their rights regarding the texts are respected by limiting their citation in the analysis. However, partial citing is allowed for necessary research purposes and is not limited by individual copyrights to the texts. Also, the data minimization aspect is respected by choosing a limited amount of candidates and limiting the time frame to a one-month period (Franzke et al., 2020). As a general ethical consideration, in the EU, the data complies with the legal regulations protecting an individual's data, and in Finland, the applied directive is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR came into effect in 2018 (General Data Protection Regulation, 2018). It concerns personal data processes, which is not applicable for this study since no personal data has been collected, except for the names of the candidates in the study. The only mentioned 146 Acta Wasaensia names in the data were politicians or journalists. Rare mentions to private individuals in the comments were only by first names, so they could not be connected to any individuals. The GDPR does allow the scientific use of anonymized data. The data is stored on a personal computer, secured with a password, and managed and presented to ensure anonymity (Franzke et al., 2020). Similar data collection is possible for any individual, since it does not require access to software or groups that are restricted. Facepager is available and free to download from a public GitHub repository. However, as its API access has been subject to change, a similar data collection method with Facepager may not always be possible. Consequently, the data used in this study is unique, which is both challenging regarding its ethical considerations, but valuable regarding the unique opportunity it offers for research. Since the developers of Facepager need to apply for the use of the Facebook API for the software, Facebook checks that the program is in line with its terms of service (Franzke et al., 2020; Jünger & Keyling, 2019). This ensures that the data fetching process complies with the terms of service of the platform, and that only the functions and collection processes that Facebook itself has allowed are operated. Mancosu and Vegetti (2020) also conclude that ethically and legally acceptable Facebook data research must be non-identifiable. Therefore, the research and research questions have been devised so that no such information is necessary for the research (Franzke et al., 2020.) Finding out the name of the person who has written a particular comment would require going through the page comments individually and comparing them to the original comment in the analysis. Technically individual comments could be found through an extensive search with Google or Facebook's own Search feature. However, the probability of this is low. Also, given that the comments are presented mostly in partial examples, this makes the search for any original comments considerably more challenging. In McKee and Porter's (2009a) application of internet research, this study takes the view that the communication studied is public, and can be viewed as "public observation or public archive work". Zimmer (2018) reminds us that the public availability of data is not enough to justify the ethical considerations of, for example, the study and collection of Facebook content. As Markham and Buchanan (2012) argue, social media data is still the data of human subjects, which requires subjecting the process to specific ethical guidelines. Considering the dimensions of informed consent, my research data is placed low in regard to data ID, degree of interaction, topic sensitivity, subject sensitivity, and is positioned Acta Wasaensia 147 towards the public end of the spectrum, in which case McKee and Porter (2009b) regard that obtaining direct consent is not likely to be necessary. The researcher has not been involved in the discussion or content creation, so the data has not been affected by any false alterations or provocation. There is no need to register or join a specific closed internet forum, so the research process can be considered equivalent to studying old newspaper articles of other archival data. However, different laws direct broadcasting media where the editor-in-chief is also responsible for what is published. In social media, moderation can be used to affect available content. Moderation means that the content is selected, sometimes altered, and sometimes erased if it, for example, includes harmful comments or information that cannot be validated. Online, moderation depends on the platform and the page administrators. In 2019, most of the platforms do not moderate the content produced, since they only claim ownership and responsibility for the technological aspects of the platform and place the responsibility for content with the individuals producing the content. The political parties and candidates have different approaches to moderation and the need for it on their pages, and the implications this might have for page content is considered in the analysis. The data collected is public and accessible to those signed in to Facebook with the limitation that it can be edited continuously because it is online. The discrepancy in the number of comments calculated by Facepager and actual lines of texts available for analysis shows that there has been some editing in the comment threads at least through the later removal of some comments. Laaksonen, Matikainen and Tikka (2013: 21) as well as Markham and Buchanan (2017) point out that social media's continuous development makes it a challenging object of research. However, the development of Facebook has slowed down lately, and new versions and developments have focused more on visual layout and privacy issues, rather than on the core functions of posting and commenting. During the data period of this study in March–April 2019 and data collection in May 2019, no changes were made to the way pages were presented or how posting and commenting was done on Facebook. However, the way people use social media and its different channels changes, so these types of studies, while presenting the opportunity to categorize and understand how people use social media, only allow for considerations reflecting the specific time in question. Therefore, as Turtiainen and Östman (2013: 55) remind us, it is vital to know the context of online conversations in order to be able to analyze them and evaluate their ethical considerations. Another challenge in the ethical considerations of social media data is the varying approaches taken within academia to ethical boundaries related to social media 148 Acta Wasaensia data. Deliberation is needed because those who write comments on Facebook do not automatically sign consent for their social media texts to be used for research. Turtiainen and Östman (2013: 49–67) state that online, when writing posts, the individuals do not always understand or remember the public nature of online contexts. However, while this is often the case, especially with younger people, those participating in the political discussions on a politician’s public page can be expected to realize that their comments are visible to the public (Franzke et al., 2020). Political discussion is public. Thus it cannot be limited, and it can be researched. In the case of these public pages of politicians, the participants are aware that they are discussing matters on a public page, even though sometimes they are only addressing the owner of the page - the politician in question. To some extent, this can be viewed as consent to treat the text as public. The data source is comprised of public politician profile pages that do not require the joining of a group, which means that all the data contained therein is public. Markham and Buchanan (2017) also discuss this issue concerning public tweets, and take the position that since the tweet writer is aware of their public nature, they can be viewed to have given tacit consent. I apply this similarly to the discussion conducted in public page posts, although this consideration would differ for a closed private Facebook group discussion. Thus, the idea of waiving consent when consent is impossible to obtain (Markham, 2018) is applied, given that there are thousands of anonymous writers of the comments in the collected data, and they are not part of a community through which they could be reached. In this case, the earlier mentioned consideration of doing no harm is seen as essential, and has been foreseeably met. Franzke et al. (2020) refer to The Belmont Report (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1979), and view that science needs to respect people, beneficence, and justice. In this study, even though the individuals posting on the Facebook pages of politicians have not known of the research being conducted and the data being collected, the ethical considerations fill these requirements. The politicians selected for the data were informed of the study when they were asked who produced the content on their Facebook pages. This happened after the campaign period, but before the data collection process commenced. In Finland, politicians are considered as public figures who have less privacy rights, for example when they are discussed publicly. In the study, they are presented in their public role as politicians and their communication is treated as being part of public discussion, so they can be discussed in research without the need for anonymization. But in consideration of the aspects of respect and benefice of research, the politicians in question are not assessed on their individual abilities to construct personal brands in this study. Acta Wasaensia 149 There are similar types of research within the field of political communication that can be posed as an ethical guide for evaluating the close analysis of the posts and comments in this study. Rossini et al. (2018) have similarly applied the ethical guidelines by the Association of Internet Researchers in their study of Facebook messages and tweets with content analysis. Another similar dataset in the study of Nelimarkka et al. (2020) was collected from the 2015 electoral campaign and anonymized. Their main argument is that the individual comments are not discussed and the page content is analyzed separately from the users. In this way, the principle of anonymity is fulfilled similar to this study. The focus on text is typical of people researching online contexts (Franzke et al., 2020; White, 2002), and these studies also argue that analyzed online discussions can be considered as public non-sensitive information. Especially, as the forum is public and if the content does not include any sensitive information, the informed consent of the citizens producing the collected data is not seen as ethically necessary (McKee & Porter, 2009). However, because the focus of the study is not on the individuals but rather on the texts and content they produce, their rights for their texts needs to be considered. In this study, since the texts are not used as a whole and are treated as part of the dataset and analyzed in terms of what meanings are negotiated, limited citations can be presented as part of the scientific research. Similar reasoning for not causing harm to individuals (McKee & Porter, 2009) has also been expressed in the study of Larsson (2015a) on Norwegian politicians' pages on Facebook, and for the selection of data to exclude private profiles. This is reassured by not identifying the discussing private individuals, and seeing that only their texts or choices of topics or words are analyzed. However, while the politicians producing the initiations of discussion are discussed by name, they are represented with their public politician role in the study. Therefore, ethical reporting, neutral consideration, and the scientific emphasis on analyzing the text are carefully focused upon. With these considerations taken in mind, this presented study and the method of data selection can be assessed as filling the current ethical requirements present at the time of study. 150 Acta Wasaensia 5! CANDIDATES CONSTRUCTING PERSONAL BRANDS In this chapter, the analysis of the posts from the candidates on their public pages is presented by discussing the candidates as actors in the brand construction. The comments of the public and their analysis is shown in the next chapter. I have categorized the posts, and my analysis follows that categorization. The sample tables of the original comments and their translations are in Appendix 2. In Chapter 7, I discuss how the politicians’ personal brands manifest in the data, and will present the findings with the affordances for Facebook in section 3.3.2. In the first section, 5.1, I analyze the content of the posts from a quantitative perspective presenting the percentages of the most visible types of content in the posts. This gives an overview of how candidates communicate on Facebook, and provides the context for brand construction. After this, a thorough manual analysis of all of the posts is performed, together with a presentation of text samples from the posts. This manual analysis is presented in section 5.2 and divided into different categories with a detailed analysis for findings on persona construction and personal branding. In data-based content analysis, the theoretical framework provides categories where the data can be coded. However, the data can also present a need for new or modified categories, thus directing the analysis and guiding the researcher to consider the data and what it shows. Also, after finalizing the coding framework for analyzing the content, it is possible to look closer at the findings. In the coding process, the operationalization was developed during the first and second reading of the data. After this, the data was coded in an Excel sheet, and representing example citations for each category were placed in a separate file so that examples could be presented together with the findings. The same post could be coded for several categories, and multiple times, because the posts were both personal and political at the same time. For example, a candidate could be announcing campaign trail updates, but adding a party leader reference, and describing their feelings about having their family with them that day. This post would then be coded as political, with content for campaign-trail update, but also as sharing their personal life and discussing family. The relevant quantitative calculations for percentages of the content were calculated using the Excel formulas and placed in tables to be presented as findings. My analysis of the candidates' posts is conducted in three steps, following the three operationalizations and models that have inspired my work. The unit of analysis was one whole post. First, the operationalization modified from Nelimarkka et al. (2020) was used to analyze the content of the posts and comments. Understanding Acta Wasaensia 151 the context of Facebook during campaigns and the type of content through which personal brands are negotiated can be seen in this first step. Second, Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer’s (2012) operationalization for personalization in the media was modified to better fit my context in Facebook and the content produced by the candidates and the public. From the model of political selves and their representation, the analysis will produce brand type representations, which are presented in Chapter 7. Last, the posts, comments and the results from the first two analysis rounds were reflected on through the affordances of Facebook presented in Table 1, inspired by Blegind Jensen and Dyrby (2013) in their work on Facebook use by political parties. 5.1! Content in the Posts In my analysis, the categories arose from a data-based approach, but they follow and represent the categories featured in the study by Nelimarkka et al. (2020). Their study categorized the content of Facebook posts and comments into the categories presented in Table 7: information and opinion sharing, seeking information and opinions, critiquing and arguing, sharing personal information, socio-emotional functions, formal campaigning, and praising and expressing support. To support the analysis on affordances, I added a category of sharing own content, which included sharing a blog, a speech from a debate or event, or other media content related to the candidate themselves. For information and opinion sharing, the topic issue posts were easy to distinguish. In them, the candidates brought up policies and agenda-setting either by informing, stating an opinion, inquiring among the public, or by discussing and arguing for or against something. Seeking information and opinions types of posts reflected candidates who asked for an example, or what the electorate felt about a new policy plan. Sharing personal information was coded for posts where the candidates described their daily activities or shared something personal about their family; for example, expressing that they went to vote with their spouse was coded sharing personal and intimate. However, it was also coded as political, since at the same time, it could be viewed as a call to vote by setting an example. ! 152 Acta Wasaensia Table 7. Post categories and coding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�$"*"A-$&0+&)0)K #0$"*"A-$&-A*0+?C&#+-"?")D&?($6& ,.$%?%-"&%.#1("#$("$$%&%.#1( && !2-+")D&0<)&A0)*()*& !2-+")D&H$0D?C&0*2(+&7(>"-&A0)*()*C&?2-+")D&0<)&?#((A2(?& The categories presented in Table 7 were also coded with subcategories to get a more detailed description of the content. Thus, for example, the category of information and opinion sharing was also coded for sharing information, stating an opinion, and topic issues. The results for these more detailed categories are presented later in this chapter. The focus in my analysis on brand construction was on the privatization dimension taken from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) because of the presumption that Facebook would invite more self-personalization (Enli, 2015b). Privatization includes personal characteristics and personal life. In addition to these, they present the dimension of individualization which consists of the variables of general visibility and concentrated visibility. The analysis also included these to present findings on how the general visibility and concentrated visibility were utilized and benefitted from. The original operationalization was modified by changing a few categories to make them more suitable for the data, context, and aim. In the coding instructions of Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012), for general visibility, the total number of references to the politician and the party are counted in newspapers. Since social media posts and comments are typically shorter than news articles, the categorization of each post was based on whether the politician or party or another party or politician from another party was referred to, so I Acta Wasaensia 153 disregarded any repeated mentions that occurred in one post. Concentrated visibility refers to the amount leaders that were referenced in relation to the total number of references to political actors. Here, only a reference to the party leader or a reference to the candidate in question were categorized. For politicians' characteristics, references were coded for competence, leadership, credibility, rhetorical skills, and the candidate's appearance. For politicians' personal lives, references were made to family, past life or upbringing, leisure time, and love life. I modified these last two categories the most since I felt it was necessary to explore these aspects more deeply, in order to understand the personal brand construction. Therefore, I added coding for family, childhood and hometown, leisure-time and interests, love life, and others aspects including health and religion. Also in the analysis, the coding category of intimate includes family and love life, while past, childhood, hometown, and leisure time are referenced as private life content. References to the candidates' history were only coded for their political characteristic if they were part of their political career, for example, their decisions taken as a minister. These were coded either for competence, leadership, or credibility, depending on the message and what the aim was. References to the candidate were counted for the posts when they used a clear "I think" or "My view is" type phrase, whereas if they made "My party views" or "The x party proposes" type references, these were not coded as personal or having concentrated visibility because the candidate spoke for the party. For their characteristics, references were coded if the candidates themselves stated a value or highlighted their competence on an issue, for example, through their background. Leisure-time and interests were coded when the candidate posted having spent their free time somewhere or doing something. References to music, culture and sports were also coded for this category. The post numbers in the manual analysis did not match the post numbers reported by Facepager and presented in Tables 10 and 11. This shortcoming results from using the program. Despite several collection rounds, some posts and comments came back as blank lines on the Excel spreadsheet, and can result from either privacy settings or moderated content, where erased posts are not collected but result in a blank line. These were disregarded in the manual analysis, resulting in a conflicting total number of posts and comments. However, the large number of posts and comments balance this data imperfection, and did not cause a significant deficit for the analysis. The most visible post categories, where more than 5 % of the posts where of that category, are presented in Table 8. The decimals have been rounded off the numbers. Categories include sharing information, topic messages, stating opinions 154 Acta Wasaensia and taking positions, sharing personal information, campaign trail updates, calls to vote, campaign trail in media, and sharing own content. Table 8. Most visible content on posts !"&'>.*+( A(?.0#$(%#(-.#&'#&B(#CDEF( 10#"A&7(??-D(& MN&O& !2-+")D&")60+7-*"0)& PQ&O& !*-*")D&-)&0#")"0)&0+&*-9")D&-�?"*"0)& PR&O& '-7#-"D)K*+-"$&4#>-*(?&0+&#+070*"0)& PS&O& !2-+")D&-&2.#(+$")9&T&0<)&A0)*()*&($?(<2(+(& SN&O& IF#+(??")D&6(($")D?& UV&O& '-7#-"D)K*+-"$&0)&7(>"-& UV&O& '-$$&*0&;0*(& UM&O& !2-+")D&#(+?0)-$&")60+7-*"0)& W&O& As Table 8 shows, 50% of the posts discussed topic issues. This amount supports Isotalus and Almonkari's (2011) findings on most Finnish politicians being represented as "topic politicians". However, some shared personal information, and from all the posts, 8% included references to personal information, but mainly focused on particular candidates. Some shared no personal information on their posts which supports the earlier findings of several Finnish politicians wanting to represent themselves only through topic issues and their political career and decision-making. However, Gerodimos and Justinussen (2015) found in their study on the Obama presidential campaign that the followers engaged more with campaign messages and policy-orientated posts, so focusing on topic issues can benefit the candidates. The second most visible content (39 %) was sharing information, which was usually combined with the most prominent category since politicians often communicated topic issues by sharing information simultaneously. Thus, candidates were using their visibility to educate the electorate on matters and open the decision-making processes and background for topic issues. The third-largest category of stating an opinion or taking a position, was often combined with the first two most visible categories. However, this category was often coded with a more careful interpretation, and candidates did not necessarily state their opinion firmly. Instead, they wrote about things such as "the party recommending the following legislation", so they often separated these topic issues from their persona. Campaign-trail updates or promotion was present in 32% of the posts, Acta Wasaensia 155 indicating that the candidates see Facebook as a convenient forum for announcing more real-time updates, and that they use it almost as an information board instead of a discussion thread. As seen in Table 8, nearly a third of all the messages (32%) were announcing appearances at different locations or describing campaign activities during the campaign tour. This supports previous findings on candidates mainly using Facebook for campaign-trail updates and other information sharing activity (Nelimarkka et al., 2020). Even though not a lot of personal information was visible on the posts, 16% had expressions of feelings in them. These were often produced together with the campaign trail updates or towards the end of the campaign related to expressions of gratitude for the campaign (Table 8). These types of feeling posts seemed spontaneous. Thus, they support the authenticity illusion or the idea that the content appears authentic and genuine (Enli, 2015a). The candidates might have added feelings to make the posts more fitting to the platform, which steers them towards more personal content creation. However, since most candidates claimed to write their own content, it is natural that the posts seemed more spontaneous and included their feelings, especially towards the end of the campaign where posts expressed gratitude for the team and the constituents. These posts also presented what McGregor (2017) discusses as humanizing elements, where the politicians create more authentic presentations, thus getting closer to the electorate. This leads to the decision of raising a brand type representation of the ‘humane politician’ when they communicate the private and intimate dimensions of their persona. Table 8 shows that even though social media platforms offer an easy opportunity to share other content, only 20% of the posts shared the candidates' blog posts, tweets, or different types of content that could be found elsewhere. Also, these were focused on particular candidates who were doing mainly this activity on their posts. The limited sharing of their own content indicates that the candidates were not using the affordances of Facebook to their full extent, and therefore there is a lot to develop to benefit fully from the added exposure and visibility that Facebook offers as a platform. Surprisingly, only 15% of the posts discussed the category that could be regarded as the most significant during the election - the call to vote. These posts were also focused on particular candidates. Even though the main message when campaigning is to sell the idea of voting and the candidate's number, only a few posts included the candidate number or encouraged people to vote. Some calls to vote were also neutral information posts on where and how to vote, instead of direct calls to vote for a particular candidate. This suggests that the candidates 156 Acta Wasaensia were afraid to sell themselves as candidates on Facebook, and focused more on sharing information on policies and announcing where people could meet them during the campaign. Also, it implies that in their Facebook activity, the candidates focus on the audience who are already familiar with the candidates and their basic information (Table 8). Again, they seemed to be using Facebook merely as a place for making announcements and one-way communication, instead of challenging and engaging constituents for interaction and taking action. Table 9 shows the less visible content categories that were present in 1-5% of all the posts. These include expressing ideas or suggestions, disagreeing with opponents, greetings, comments on other media presence, and praising non- political actors. Table 9. Less visible content !"&'>.*+( A(.?(-.#&'#&B(#CDEF( B"?-D+((")D&0+&(F#+(??")D&+(X(A*"0)&*0&0##0)()*?& S&O& Y+((*")D?& S&O& ,+-"?")D&-&)0)K#0$"*"A-$&-A*0+& S&O& IF#+(??")D&-)>&">(-C&<"?2C&0+&?4DD(?*"0)& U&O& '077()*&0)&0*2(+&7(>"-&#+(?()A(& U&O& Table 9 indicates that even though Strandberg (2008) suggests that social media content is more negative and campaigning there is often about attacking others, the Finnish candidates did not typically present disagreement or reject other candidates. This is also opposite to what Railo et al. (2016: 333) suggest as the possibility of social media raising critical voices towards opponents, and might be linked with the consensus seeking culture seen in Finnish politics, opposite to for example the US where it is typical to see campaigns that even attack opposition candidates. Instead, they only discussed their own or their party's view, and in this way, they were also not promoting any exposure of other candidates, even in a negative tone. Table 9 also shows that candidates only rarely promoted non- political actors during the campaign. Only 2% of the content included these types of mentions, and they mainly included posts where candidates expressed gratitude to their close ones or other non-political actors. The findings also show that candidates were not expressing ideas, wishes, or suggestions during their campaign. Instead, they were communicating ready to be published topics and agendas. This also implies that they were not on Facebook to discuss and negotiate, but rather to inform. Acta Wasaensia 157 Other categories were only present in less than 1% in all the posts, so may not be considered as significant as the data categorized in Tables 7 and 8. In the next chapter, I will focus on the manual content analysis of the posts. 5.2! Posts as Acts to Negotiate the Brand The manual content analysis operationalization used in this study is modified from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer’s (2012) coding instructions for analyzing media content and the personalization of politics. The original operationalization was created for analyzing news articles, so some adaptions were needed to apply the frame to social media posts and discussion. The main changes were the addition of references to free-time with reference to hobbies and interest in the category of the personal life of a candidate, and a reference to other, with health and religion. The addition of “Sharing own content” was added to see how candidates strengthened their brand by adding exposure to content on or by them elsewhere, thus enabling what Chadwick (2013) describes as a hybrid media environment where different media content supplement and feed each other. Importantly, a further analysis for all the candidates will help to develop the analysis frame, thereby providing a model for future social media discussion analysis in the context of political campaigns. Figure 18 shows how the content of the posts was categorized into different types of content, and these are presented in the coming chapters. In the analysis, these different types were represented how a politician's personal brand was negotiated. Different politicians use different styles, and this was also analyzed to produce a model for brand type representations. The first phase of browsing through the posts for each candidate showed that, unlike expected, it is not only the page owner who posts and initiates discussions and others commenting. After the first phase, the first analysis frame was developed. The content analysis is shown through examples collected from the data. These examples are presented in Appendix 2, and coded separately with A1- A35 in a table which shows the original and the translated citation. Each example is either a representative of typical content in the data or a unique type of post. In this way, a holistic view of the discussion can be presented in the analysis, and no type of content is left out because of the amount of a particular type of content. The posts were treated as discussion initiations as termed in Farina's (2019) outline for Facebook analysis. However, in the analysis, the post is used as the unit of analysis. The comments for it were analyzed separately because the actors in the construction for the personal brand in these two elements are different. 158 Acta Wasaensia Figure 18. Post types Since there was no critique or arguments towards issues, individuals or organizations expressed in the posts, this category has been left out from the following chapters describing my qualitative analysis. 5.2.1! Informing the electorate This information and opinion sharing category included posts where information was shared, and topic issues were discussed by stating opinions or communicating agenda-setting. These types of messages constructed the brand types of the topic politician and the professional politician. The topic politician resembles the type of politician introduced by Isotalus and Almonkari (2011). The variety and amount of these types of messages support their findings that many Finnish politicians were communicating themselves as topic politicians, and it is the most natural representation for them. This shows that the Finnish political communication style to be tightly connected with topic issues and policy messages. Often these were joined with a call to vote, or to announce a television debate or a given interview, and in this way also forming Chadwick’s (2013) hybrid media environment, where content is shared and interlinked between different types of media. One candidate primarily represented the topic politician by discussing topic issues in lengthy posts that can be seen as exceptional on social media, where shorter content less focused on text is preferred. This candidate represented humane content with “stories from the field,” which promoted party politics. The content on the post remained strictly professional and issue-centered. It can further be !"#$# !"#$%&'()$"* '"+*$,)")$"* -.'%)"/ 0'11*($* ,'%()2),'(3 4$,)2* &3--'/3- 5""$6"2)"/* ',,3'%'"23- 7'%(89733%* ,$1)()2)'"* &3--'/3- 73%-$"'1* 2$"(3"( !%&#"'()*+&(',*-%##(.%# :)";)"/*$<"* =1$/- !"#$%&)"/* (.3* 3132($%'(3 >$* 3?,%3--)$"-* $#*)"(3%3-( @.'%)"/*(.3* ,3%-$"'1*1)#3 A%'()(6+3*=8* (.3*3"+*$#* (.3* 2'&,')/" B33(*&3C* D$)"*&3 E'(2.*&3C* %3'+*&3 F$(3*#$%*$6%* ,'%(8*13'+3% Acta Wasaensia 159 observed that since this candidate was female, this contradicted Railo and Ruohonen’s (2016: 255) conclusion on the election of 2007 that female candidates would portray a more informal image of themselves than male candidates. However, the candidate refrained from revealing private life content which supports earlier findings. Have a good Against Racism day! Some parties turn people against each other and promote racism so that they would not have to talk about social welfare. To us, equality and the non-discrimination of people are the most important starting points - now and always. Every day we do everything we can so there would be no space for racism and everyone could live their lives without the fear it causes. There is no space for racism and discrimination in our Finland. #YouDecide (Appendix 2, A2.) As seen in the example, current events were also attached or referred to in the post messages. Attaching topic issues to current events such as the National Days for Minna Canth, Mikael Agricola, or the school children's environment strike benefited the visibility of these topics in the media, and promoted discussion on social media. Increasing the online discussion can give added exposure to the topics discussed. The type of messages attached to national days resembled communication agencies' style of planning a calendar where content can be personalized with special days or events. Here, the affordances of Facebook as a tool became visible, and in this way, the candidates could promote their activities and opinions in a more spontaneous and natural tone instead of marketing their achievements which could cause an adverse reaction or at least less engagement among the electorate (see Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015). Another way of discussing topics was by describing specific actions and work- related events that the candidates were part of, and attaching those to the topic messages: Today we were sitting together with the Green party exercise and sports people thinking about the Green Party aims for sports politics. A top skier Martti Jylhä was describing the activities of the Protect Our Winters Finland organization - which was how to prevent climate change and secure real winter. Great conversation - and the athletes are with us in preventing climate change. (Appendix 2, A3.) These types of messages were used to negotiate the networked self and the professional self by bringing up professional activities, such as the candidate’s current role either as a minister, parliamentary representative, or member of a special committee. I added this type of professional role content to the Van Aelst, 160 Acta Wasaensia Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) operationalization of privatization. These messages highlighting past and current expertise through the professional role rose from the data in several categories, both in the posts of the politicians and the comments from the public. They also often showed the viral nature of emotional messages (Laaksonen & Pöyry, 2018; Rantasila, 2018), raising more discussion and getting more reactions. The candidates communicated and strengthened their brand through their profession and the activities they were performing in their roles, and the expertise they possessed because of their previous and current roles, thus highlighting the dimension of professional self in their brand. The topic posts were rarely more extended argumentation on a single topic. Instead, they were collections of ideas around a theme or an announcement of central topics that the party or candidate was focused on during their campaign: Offering a new frame! A way to remind friends that 1) work must be profitable, 2) Finland must be open and secure, and 3) we need a future without emissions. And most of all, voting is important and all help counts. #tottaKai (Appendix 2, A1.) Here, the candidate was also reminding people about voting, while stating the key topics and central issues attached to their brand. This type of issue ownership has been discussed by Petrocik (1996), and it was seen with the candidates when they chose only a few topics for discussion; those usually being the key topics that they want to be remembered for and were promoting. In this way, the topics became part of their brand. Van Dalen et al. (2015) have also reported this type of limited content on topic issues discussed in Facebook in the Danish parliamentary elections of 2011, noting that the Facebook agenda was separate from the media and the public agendas. Skogerbø and Krumsvik (2015) have also found little evidence of agenda-setting on social media, and this limitation supports my findings on candidates using Facebook as a bulletin board, where opinions were rarely asked for or debate encouraged. Instead, the information was merely transmitted and stated. Party leaders especially communicated their topic messages from a ‘party first’ perspective, this way describing the party agenda: The movement among young people is showing that there is hope for humankind. The concerns of the young people must be answered. More carbon sinks are needed. The Center Party challenges Finnish actors to plant an extra 10 million trees of new forest next summer. #environment #forests (Appendix 2, A4.) Acta Wasaensia 161 Here, they were telling how the party approached the topic and what kind of stance the party was taking. This communication method with a party perspective was typical for party leaders who also communicate these topics to the broadcast media and represent their parties there. In this way, the considerable exposure of party leaders was often used to promote the party’s agenda-setting. 5.2.2! No expressions of interest The category of seeking information and opinions presented few results. From the data, I found rare examples for soliciting opinions and asking for information. This lack of expressions of interest for the constituents’ thoughts highlighted the one- way communication reported for the last election by Nelimarkka et al. (2020) that was visible in most candidates’ posts. One candidate was able to show their interest by encouraging the public to ask questions: I believe there currently isn't enough dialogue being held about Finnish politics and the elections in English. This is important for foreigners in Finland to effectively take part in our society. I want to help and enable expats residing in Finland to use #AskKai and ask me about the biggest policy questions they have now that we are only few days from the election Sunday. So please, let me hear 'em and I'll do my best to answer online and in the next video. Every question is important. Remember to vote! ---- (Appendix 2, A5.) This candidate was often encouraging the public to ask questions on the page and promised to answer them. He also wrote some content in English to serve the English-speaking audience. But even though he promoted questions and dialogue, there were not many comments on the page. Possibly this resulted from the use of English. However, these posts still expressed the promotion of dialogue and a willingness to listen. 5.2.3! Glimpses into the personal life The posts representing personal content were separated between private and intimate, and are presented in this category of sharing personal information. Generally, there were not many posts on anything personal. Typical examples of personal in the posts included comments on the family dog, the spouse or the children, or something reflecting the candidates' childhood, home, or current living areas. For traditional media, Pernaa, Niemi and Pitkänen (2009) have described this inclusion of non-political topics as “the expansion of the media 162 Acta Wasaensia exposure of politics”, and it also applies well to social media content. Other possible content coded for this category concerned health and feelings. It was also noted that those candidates who chose to discuss family and their love life publicly were doing it even more than, for example, presenting leisure-time activities. There were only a few occasions of mentioning age or anything similar to it in the data. One candidate had a birthday during the campaign: I am turning 40 years old tomorrow! Let’s eat soup together (30.3. at 11- 13) at Eetunaukio in Pori. I hope you'll be there. (Appendix 2, A6.) Even when connected to a campaign event, this kind of intimate invitation to celebrate birthdays together represented an illusion of authenticity (Enli, 2015b), and connected the candidate with their audience on a more personal level. References to the candidate’s own background can be considered a typical example of more personal and intimate content as it touches on either childhood or family life. However, references to the past in the data primarily referenced political background or career aspects related to the candidates’ current political roles. For example, childhood was referred to when the campaign trail touched home municipalities. This is natural since most of the party leaders and vote-pullers in the study were long-term professional politicians with only a limited or no previous career outside politics. However, previous career expertise can be employed to promote political activity, and an example was seen of a candidate describing how their previous career expertise was used to build their personal brand: As a criminal lawyer one must know what a leading question is like. Now you can learn it too – by using the Yle Kioski election candidate selection engine. (Appendix 2, A7.) Here the candidate brought up their profession while simultaneously criticizing the selection engine of the national broadcast media. By promoting their profession while campaigning, the candidate added the career as part of their credibility an as a professional characteristic, making it significant in constructing the professional self. Another candidate was known as a professional athlete before becoming a party leader. However, this candidate did not mention their career in their posts, but, as I will present in the analysis of the comments, the public included references to their former career and valued it as an important part of this candidate's brand. Acta Wasaensia 163 The posts sharing something intimate were unique cases, so these types of posts and extensions to private persona were more occasional one-time openings than a strategic representation of a persona that would be authentic (Enli, 2015b) and personal. Several candidates mentioned their dogs and the activities they did with them, usually mentioning exercising with them, posting a photo of them, or including them in the campaign narrative: 1)! We went to a "hairdresser" with Romeo. One must clean themself up a bit for the election and onwards. Before (photo) After (photo) (Appendix 2, A8.) 2)! Happily reunited at the campaign street (last time about an hour ago) This voter seemed to always have an empty food cup. !9:;<=> Pessi by the way had a lot more fans and people wanting to touch him than me !?@A (Appendix 2, A9.) Communicating family dogs promoted engagement and created non-controversial content, and also gave a personal feeling to the posts representing a safe choice to negotiate personal life. It can be considered as part of the intimate negotiation, as dogs are regarded as family members. Dogs can be used to connect with the ordinary life of constituents, and almost every third household in Finland has a pet, and about 509 000 households have a dog (Tilastokeskus, 2020). In this way, the candidates could represent themselves as one of the people, comparable to an average citizen with a dog, and connecting with voters on a more personal level. It also gave the impression of authenticity and private, while still keeping the rest of the family private and untouchable - almost like inviting the electorate to their home but only letting them look at the garden. For the election of 2007, Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 255) noted that female politicians communicated more about animals in their posts. But in the data, this study found both male and female candidates discussed the family dogs. Leisure-time references were few, even though the electorate engaged and commented on the posts positively when they were made. In my operationalization, they communicate private life. The limited amount of leisure- time references could also result from a busy campaign period and the lack of leisure-time activities performed during it, and a more extended analysis period might show more leisure-time content from the candidates. Some candidates noted this busy schedule on their posts: 164 Acta Wasaensia Today I have “charged the batteries”. Enjoy a walk in the Fäboda Forest and skied 12 km along the so-called hiking trail. A lot of ice and some water. But it nonetheless went surprisingly well. And then you have time to think a lot. Three weeks until elections and many interesting rallies, debates and campaign hits remain. I'm trying to get as much as done possible. To be on top and be able to perform well, you also need some time of your own between. At full energy, I am now looking forward to next week. (Finnish) Wonderful Sunday and probably the last skiing for this winter. The Finnish nature is so beautiful. Lets take care of nature's diversity! (Appendix 2, A10.) Commenting on the Finnish nature and outdoor activities valued in the Finnish culture was also a way for the candidate to engage with the electorate. While Sampietro and Sánchez-Castillo (2020) found Santiago Abascal portraying sports typical to the Spanish culture as part of his persona, the Finnish political candidates communicated their outdoor activities. For the candidate Sari Essayah, who is known for a career as an Olympic athlete, the public were making references to this athletic career. But otherwise, sports was referred to when communicating about daily walks or a Sunday skiing trip, which again relates well with the Finnish electorate who are used to this exercising outdoor culture as being a typical part of a person's wellbeing. This type of content was also encouraged by television journalist Ripsa Koskinen, who made an interview program where she spends free time with the candidates while interviewing them (MTV, 2021). The data shows examples of how this program encouraged the candidates to show, for example, their craft skills and passion for skiing and fishing. With the candidates who chose to share and discuss their appearances on the program, the posts and comments further communicated private dimensions of their personas. Similar to the leisure-time program, a radio station Radio Nova asked the candidates to write a letter to their young selves. Sharing these letters increased personal content in the data. ---- I wrote !BCDE ***--- You don't know yet but in about 5 years from now, you will sit in law school to study to become a lawyer. You will meet a guy there who will teach you studying techniques. I recommend you listen to him because that will help you to graduate in a year and a half. --- (Appendix 2, A12.) Some party leaders shared their letters on their page this way, revealing intimate and personal content to their audience. The letters negotiated a very personal self with details from childhood, school years, and family life. In their letters, these negotiations, together with significant turning points of their past careers and Acta Wasaensia 165 political profession represented the privatization dimension (see Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012), but went even further than the original operationalization as childhood memories and the past career represented a major part of the letters. This biographical opening to these leading politicians with a concentrated visibility constructed their brands in various ways, and the networked self, the professional self, and the personal self were all present. The illusion of authenticity described by Enli (2015b) was also created in these posts. However, it was not promoted by social media, and the initiative for posting this type of private life content came from broadcast media. The informing self was also negotiated by sharing media content on the candidate. However, the candidates themselves chose to bring their letters to more exposure by publishing them on their posts on the page, revealing a more personal and intimate side to their expected audience (see also Marwick & boyd, 2017). Another way of negotiating leisure-time was the promotion of national teams in sports: Absolutely amazing achievement from the Finnish lions! A finale spot is a great thing! !FGHI (Appendix 2, A11.) These types of posts portrayed the candidates’ interests, showing that they cared about national-level competitions while also attaching them closer to the public and making them seem part of the public. Following certain sports and cultural events included these interests in their brand, thus representing both the professional politician type by adding credibility in these topics, and the humane politician type by showing their private life. My data showed introductions to candidates’ leisure-time which gave some specific details. Sometimes these were relevant with their professional role or could be attached to the role: Here is my classical composition that participated to the Finland 100 - celebration. (Appendix 2, A13.) The candidate attached national pride by mentioning the Finland 100-year celebration, and the candidate's creative nature by linking their own musical piece for the constituents to listen to. In this way, both the professional and the humane politician brand types were negotiated. Some candidates included their spouses or family in their brand construction: Now it was my husband Roope's turn to be interviewed by Ilta-Sanomat. (Appendix 2, A14.) 166 Acta Wasaensia While the candidate did not post about their private life in addition to this, they shared an interview of their husband, which added exposure to the story, thus adding the husband to the candidate’s brand. The candidates made acknowledged choices on whether they discussed their family or spouse on their pages, and some shared stories and mentioned their family more, while others strictly kept the content focused on policy issues. In regard to family life matters, this division in publicity choices supports the simplified division of politicians by Isotalus and Almonkari (2011) into charmer politicians and topic politicians. Railo (2011: 132, 185) has also noted that personal life references are used to polish public image and popularity in profile articles. For some candidates, their role as a parent or a spouse was central in their communications, and such a natural part of their persona that this part of their private life was included in their representation. Parenthood was brought up by some candidates, both mothers, and fathers: 1)! These wonderful daughters make sure to keep their mother in good spirits and “up to date” with everything between heaven and earth. And I for one contribute by “knowing a lot”. How can you mom, know all that stuff, sometimes they wonder. But it's simple, I've lived longer !JKL (Finnish) A week ago I spent some time with both girls. Always as much fun. Girlpower! (Appendix 2, A15.) 2)! Child at home! A week early, but the best morning wake up."My 15 year old daughter has been on a school exchange in Spain and I went to pick her up from the school. This is great. The girl got to spend a week with another family in Spain and they took care of her. She went to school, got new friends and learned the language. This is what being European and international is in practice and at its best! MMM MMM (Appendix 2, A16.) In both examples, the candidates were negotiating the personal self through private and intimate persona on their posts; the intimate was brought up when discussing the children and their activities. The candidate was a lot more than their professional role here, and again more relatable to the electorate which includes parents as well. This added private self-disclosure is what Enli and Skogerbø (2013) and Meeks (2017) argue social media to invite. Candidates also included messages on their expertise, and as the second example shows, topic messages together with these posts describing their private life. Several candidates referred to their roles as parents, even though they kept their loved ones separate from their public posts. Otherwise, such content, especially more intimate content, was less visible in the data. However, one candidate's Acta Wasaensia 167 content presented a prominently personal and private end of the spectrum in the data, highlighting a more complete range of brand representations. This candidate's personal brand was not only about politics, and several private dimension issues were negotiated alongside the political aspects. Together with the family dog, his family and childhood constituted a substantial part of his personal brand on Facebook during campaigning. Some posts were built so that personal issues (like the daughter's Erasmus experience featured in the excerpt above) were used to promote policy issues, thus representing the professional politician and their private roles such as a pet owner and father, thus developing the private politician. This, together with the party leader perspective, constructed a balanced mix of professional and private politician brand types, seeming both natural and authentic (Enli, 2015b). Private life was not only negotiated through practical issues, and the private side was also shown by emotion in the messages: Aamulehti tells that "Sanna Marin was the epiphany of cheerful on Saturday." And why wouldn’t I have been, because touring Pirkanmaa, meeting people, and talking with them has been the best. In addition to all that, I get to sleep at home every night and be with my daughter mornings and evenings, when normally I am in Helsinki or touring all around Finland as the vice party leader. Tomorrow we'll be excited for the election turnout. Lets hope for a good result for the Social Democratic Party !NOPQR (Appendix 2, A17.) These posts showed the privatization dimension because the candidate's personal characteristics were presented and described. This example was taken from the last campaign day, and these types of emotional gratitude expressing messages were typical in the data during the last few campaign days. They were also coded for the socio-emotional category described in the next chapter when they expressed gratitude in the message. These emotional posts, which also shared personal life aspects, gained public engagement, creating an approachable impression. Here, the candidate's brand is constructed through personality, describing feelings and expressing emotion, highlighting the authenticity perspective emphasized by Enli (2015b) and the humanizing perspective emphasized by McGregor (2017). 5.2.4! Gratitude by the end of the campaign Socio-emotional posts included humor, gratitude, apologizing, and greetings. Expressions of gratitude were most prominent in this category, and they were 168 Acta Wasaensia usually directed to either the “home front,” referring to spouse and family,” to the campaign team, or to the voters: Campaign work done. I am home :) Feeling good! We have gone all in during the last week. Our campaign and the amazing ‘throwing yourself out there’ from people was more than I could have expected. I am satisfied for the debates, they went just like I planned. With this picture, a big thank you and a hug to all of you. Candidates, home front, close ones, the voters !STU Let's fight for a good Finland and for every single Finn! Let's be responsible. Against hatred and juxtaposition. Let's hope that tomorrow we get to show that we represent the most! (Appendix 2, A18.) In these posts, the sense of a personal approach was enforced by emotional descriptions of enjoying the campaign, meeting people, and negotiating private life, especially with intimate content. These posts represented the humane, networking, and professional politician's brand types by combining the private as genuine feelings and also the political role in campaign work. The affective dynamics of social media networks described in earlier studies (see Laaksonen & Pöyry, 2018; Papacharissi, 2015; Rantasila, 2018) were used to engage constituents and to create the illusion of authenticity (Enli, 2015b). 5.2.5! Meet me, join me This category of formal campaigning included posts announcing campaign-trail updates, mobilizing the constituents, and presenting calls to vote. The campaign trail updates were either information on dates and locations where the candidate could be met, or invitations for discussions with them at the events. Here, the brand types that were negotiated were the networked and the professional politician. The networked politician brand type focused on the campaign trail and visiting the electorate, while for the professional politician, these appearances on the campaign trail were part of the role. The significant amount of campaign trail updates indicated that the candidates viewed Facebook as helpful in sharing information quickly, and instead of building a long-term strategy by promoting constant interaction between the candidate and the electorate, the platform was rather used as a more spontaneous one-way information bulletin board. Mostly, the updates were promotional, which according to Gerodimos and Justinussen (2015), does not promote engagement. The data in this category supports previous findings on social media being mainly used for disseminating information (Farkas & Schwartz, 2018; Graham et al., 2013; Nelimarkka et al., 2020) instead of interaction. In this way, the Acta Wasaensia 169 opportunities for dialogue were neglected, and Facebook was treated more like a channel for pouring out information, instead of engaging in discussions with the electorate. The voice used and ways how the public was addressed were different in the posts. The ways how the candidates called people to see them diverged between different candidates. These differences set the tone of the posts and could either distance or connect the electorate. The most significant differences were in how the public was addressed and tour locations were announced: I will come to meet you next week in different parts of Pirkanmaa. I hope that we meet!NOPQR (Appendix 2, A19.) This candidate used the you-reference, which emphasized each member of the electorate as an individual and gave the impression of talking to everyone individually through these Facebook posts, instead of making more general announcements. This type of personal approach described more of what is promoted as the possibilities of social media and the direct constituent-candidate connection, thus representing the listening politician brand type. However, these posts indicated that the listening politician is listening on the campaign events, but not on Facebook because there was no interaction with the public regardless of the personal address style. This candidate also got a high number of mainly positive reactions, which could result from this type of approach being used in the posts. The logic of Facebook guides users towards more personal content, and studies have shown that humanizing self promotes authenticity (Enli, 2015a; McGregor, 2017). Yet only a few candidates in the data produced it while promoting their visits. Similar results were found by Nelimarkka et al. (2020) in their study on the 2015 electoral campaign, which suggests that no significant development in sharing personal content has happened between the two latest elections in relation to candidates' Facebook communications. This could be a lack of strategic thinking regarding Facebook, or even suggest that the candidates undermined its importance as a campaign platform when allocating their campaign communication resources, so supporting Nielsen and Vaccari's (2012) conclusion of only a few politicians managing their impressions well on Facebook, and failing in an area that Rogers (2015: 198–207) describes as essential for successful campaigns. The use of the third-person singular form in posts telling only who is where and when, suggests that someone else was writing the posts instead of the candidates themselves: 170 Acta Wasaensia Tomorrow is the election day, but today we are still going full steam! BZ is available at 12 at the spring fair of Laru, and in the afternoon we are touring in the Helsinki city center! #BZ2019 (Appendix 2, A20.) These types of messages tended to distance the electorate and give a less authentic tone for the messages, which is the opposite of Enli's (2013, 2015a) proposal of using at least seemingly authentic messaging that would better connect with the audience. This candidate represented the unique and completely non-private example of the candidates in the data, whose posts mainly discussed the candidate in the third person or passive voice, which indicates that someone else had probably produced the content. After my data collection, in January 2021, the page had been changed. The name indicated the page to be a support group page, and there was a statement that the content was produced by the support team and not the candidate. However, this information was not visible on the page during my initial data collection and analysis phase. Notably, the posts neither discussed any personal content about the candidate; nor were there any references to family or free time, and the past was only referenced through the candidate's political experience. There were no feelings described nor any personal style of writing. So here, the visible brand types were the professional and topic politicians, and it could be argued that these may be seen as cold and unapproachable since the audience was not addressed and the persona remained purely informative. However, this candidate was one of the vote-pullers, supporting Zhao, Lampe and Ellison’s (2016) view contesting the correlation between campaign success and social media use. As von Schoultz, Järvi and Mattila (2020: 189–190) argue, each candidate has their own suitable campaign mix, dependent on their voter demographics, current and past reputation as a politician, and their public exposure. Several hashtags on the post implied that the same message was also used on Instagram, where hashtags are used to connect with topics: Yesterday morning #myyrmäki (the coolest taking to the street of the campaign in terms of weather…), today we started at 0715 #karjaa ! The spring sun is shining! Now #lohja, then #vihti, #Hyvinkää, #kirkkonummi #kauniainen . Going strong! (Appendix 2, A21.) Instead of producing the platform specific self-branding described by Scolere, Pruchniewska and Duffy (2018), candidates used the same posts for several platforms; i.e. a post was posted on Instagram and then shared to Twitter and Facebook. By using the same content through different platforms, the considerations of audience or any platform-specific affordances are neglected (see also Zhao, Lampe & Ellison, 2016), and the candidates are stretching the idea of Acta Wasaensia 171 collapsed context (see boyd 2014: 31–32), or even ignoring it by multiplying their expected audience. Listing several locations in the post emphasized the brand types of networked and professional politicians, as the candidate reminded us that they visited several places and met many people, and were thus working hard for their campaign. Also, in this category, some candidates focused on more personal content: Yesterday we were touring the Turku region with heavy labor! When I am at home, I aim to start my day with a jog with Pessi. I also did that this time. --- After this I visited the Centrum Balticum Baltic Sea Seminar as a guest and speaker, from there for a tv interview to lecture in my old exam hall for the parliamentary research event. It was probably the same hall where I performed my entrance exam for the University of Turku.!VWXY--- (Appendix 2, A22.) Here, the candidate represented their persona in various types and gave the impression of a positive and approachable brand, thus presenting what McGregor (2017) calls a humanized self. A more personal and seemingly authentic approach (see Enli, 2015b) was brought by using emojis to add personality and promote engagement with the post. Describing feelings was analyzed as private life aspects included in the privatization dimension. The content was also intimate when they negotiated feelings. This is an example of the personal information that candidates were revealing, thus negotiating the humane politician brand type while discussing their campaign and their role as professional politicians. In addition to campaign trail updates, calls to vote form typical social media content for political candidates during campaigns (Nelimarkka et al., 2020). There were various approaches to these in the data. The calls to vote were less personal than expected, and the approach was often party first, neutral in tone, and the candidates rarely promoted their candidacy numbers, slogans, or even themselves. This implies that the candidates were trying to reduce the impression of selling and marketing on their posts, and focused on voting in general. The party leaders’ concentrated visibility was used to promote all of their own party’s candidates, which is supported as a strategy by Garzia’s (2014: 80) and von Schoultz’s (2016) findings that party leaders’ personas affect electoral decisions. As described, the call to vote posts generally featured a ‘party first’ message, not necessarily even mentioning the particular candidate: Preliminary voting has begun. Now it is possible to vote for the continuation of responsible and developing politics for all of Finland. The 172 Acta Wasaensia Center Party candidates around Finland are ready to commit deeds worthy of Finland.!Z[\ (Appendix 2, A23.) Especially those candidates in the data who were party leaders produced these general calls to vote. In this way, they were not promoting their personas, and instead approached voting from a party first perspective. This served merely to strengthen the party brand, which as argued by Phipps, Brace-Govan and Jevons (2010) as well as Speed, Butler and Collins (2015), is also part of the candidate's personal brand. Party leaders' brands also become intertwined with their party because broadcast media typically presents statements of the parties, and campaigns are often presented in the media as a battle between party leaders (Isotalus, 2017; Poguntke & Webb, 2005). Because of this tight attachment to their party, their role requires the party leaders to represent the networking politician brand type in their communications. Some candidates also encouraged constituents to engage with their posts by liking and sharing: We need to carry a responsibility for all generations - also the future ones. Vote for Antti, like the picture, and share if you agree. Www.anttihakkanen.fi (Appendix 2, A24.) The candidate's website information, and the call to like and share were combined with a short topic message about what the candidate represents (Table 9). In this case, a personal characteristic of responsibility was brought out to construct the candidate's brand. A detailed focus on personal characteristics is part of the privatization dimension stemming from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012). The limited representations of the humane politician can partly result from a lack of these types of self-descriptions from the candidates, and while these types of encouragement to ‘spread the message’ were rare in the data, this type of mobilization could gain the candidate and the party more exposure. It is noteworthy that even though the Finns Party has been judged to have succeeded in mobilizing constituents through social media (Niemi, 2013; 2014; Ylä-Anttila, 2020), my data did not show any clear acts of promoting mobilization from the party's candidates. Self-promoting campaign posts were direct and often included the name, and maybe even a slogan or a personal hashtag. However, the candidacy number was usually missing even in these posts. This implies that the candidates may have neglected to add information because they were writing on their personal public page, and in that way have a personalized message already. However, in so doing, they ignored the possibility of their posts being shown to those who will not visit Acta Wasaensia 173 their page and see their message because of the Facebook algorithm-determined logic. The data included some calls to vote with no reference to a party or candidate. In these, the candidate took a more educative perspective, reminding them of the importance of voting instead of making it their own message. Instructions for voting were also given by describing the process, and are typical types of messages in European parliamentary election campaigning in Finland because there is usually a problem of low voting percentages (Nyyssönen & Elo, 2019). However, some messages were written with a style or by using party-specific references so that they also constructed the candidate's own brand simultaneously. The Finns Party candidates explicitly used these type of styled messages: Be a brave Finn. Vote. (Appendix 2, A25.) In this example, bravery had a dual meaning. It referred to both the party brand and values, and challenges the electorate to be brave enough to vote for a party that is not among the three largest parties, but which is aiming to get there. Participation calls were rare in the data, even though Lilleker and Koc-Michalska (2017) and Auter and Fine (2018) argue for mobilization as one of the main benefits of Facebook in political communication, especially for populist parties (Engesser, Fawzi & Larsson, 2017). The support the candidates were seeking was mainly help for delivering campaign material. However, one candidate was asking for financial campaign support, where he declared that the party did not have significant financial donors behind them: Many people have asked, how to best support the campaign? Campaign work is expensive, the Green Party have no large donors behind them. Even a small financial aid helps. Ten euros will provide 500 brochures, fifty euros some radio time, a hundred part of the magazine ad costs. Come and support the campaign! (Appendix 2, A26.) As an act of mobilizing, only one candidate promoted a support frame that the electorate could add to their own Facebook profile pictures: Here is a ready profile picture support frame for those who want it… The support team and I thank you for your support. All support is a step forward! There is still a way to go. Thank you! (Appendix 2, A27.) This Finns Party candidate presented a unique example of mobilization of supporters on social media, which has also been noted as successful for that party by Railo et al. (2016: 331–332) when analyzing Finnish political parties on social 174 Acta Wasaensia media. Creating support frames and sharing them on Facebook is free, but surprisingly, the other candidates in the data were not utilizing this tool for their campaign communication. 5.2.6! Watch me, read me The category of sharing own content was added to the original operationalization by Nelimarkka et al. (2020) because the data included several posts where the candidates shared their own media performances, stories written about them, and their own content such as blogs. This supports Chadwick’s (2013) idea of a hybrid media environment with intertwining content between traditional and social media, and has also been described as mediatized interdependency by Ekman and Widholm (2015). In addition to the earlier mentioned media performances where party leaders were invited to share their leisure-time, their appearances on television often included election debates: Tomorrow is the party day for the Social Democratic Party. I am talking on the Yle morning show starting at 8.10. The Party leader Antti Rinne is going to be questioned at 21.00. We might just have the same direction !NOPQR (Appendix 2, A31.) Announcing their own or others’ party television appearances aimed to get more viewers and add engagement, thus enabling the electorate to listen to the candidates during debates, and commenting their responses directly to the candidate. However, the latter only seemed to be a limited effort at genuine interaction since the candidates rarely responded to the comments they got. Some of these activities were also referred to themselves in the third person and mobilized the audience with hashtags and invitations to participate in the discussion: The Left Party is the most trustworthy choice for a person who wants to stop the growing social inequality and make sure of finding solutions for climate change. The penultimate party leader debate is going on right now! Support Li on Twitter with a hashtag #thatswhyleftparty and #election2019. You can watch the debate as a live broadcast from here https://www.mtv.fi/uutiset (Appendix 2, A32.) This contradicted posts on the same candidate's page where the content was phrased in the first person form, e.g. "Today I participated". This implies that both the candidate and the team were producing the page content. This example also Acta Wasaensia 175 showed a strategic approach, in that there was a call to support the candidate on another platform, a call to watch the debate with a direct link, and a short policy statement at the beginning. Also, both the party and the candidate were mentioned separately to promote both brands with the same exposure. But this again presents a challenges of authenticity being illusory (Enli, 2015b) when the public can clearly see that candidates are not producing their own page content. The individualization aspect was portrayed in concentrated visibility (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012), where the significance and exposure of the party leader were also used to communicate the party and the topic. Lev-On and Haleva-Amir (2016) describe Facebook as a content-demanding forum, and argue that more active and dominant political actors have more content to work with on these types of platforms. The example presented supported this argument, and a strategic take and having more resources for communicating on Facebook support the candidate and also engage the electorate. One of the functions and typical ways used to produce social media content was inter-linking content between different channels. This could be done by, for example, linking a blog, Instagram or Twitter post to Facebook or other channels. Evidence of inter-linking was not prominent in the data, which shows that the candidates failed to utilize the platform's full possibilities. When it was done, it was only done so that the same post was shared on multiple platforms. However, traditional media appearances were shared for added exposure and for benefiting from content produced elsewhere. This way, some candidates created a synergy between traditional and social media, which Karlsen and Enroljas (2016) view as a success factor for political actors. Sharing links to media coverage on the candidate was a way to add exposure for the stories: Covered in the Reserviläinen magazine. A credible defense of the homeland is the guarantee of a secure society. (Appendix 2, A33.) Magazine articles and their viewpoints were also used to construct the candidate's brand if they decided to share the content on their page. However, it is usually only the supporters who take the time to open the link and read the story; therefore, it is also important to share some information on the post. In this example, the military magazine and the promoted story constructed values and past aspects, which were part of private life. This brand also supported one of the main messages of the candidate's party. Therefore, the concentrated visibility of the party leader could be seen to have been utilized for promoting topic issues. 176 Acta Wasaensia Some candidates described their campaign material or event speeches on Facebook, thus utilizing their visibility. However, these were usually only mentioned, and not, for example, shared in an electronic form which would be another way to benefit from the broad exposure. Some candidates had prepared videos for their campaign marketing, and they shared those on their Facebook page. These videos got comments and positive responses, indicating that Facebook is a good platform for campaign videos. However, not many candidates used this opportunity to produce multimodal content (see Salonen, Kannasto & Paatelainen, forthcoming) or at least share it on Facebook. Linking to party or candidate websites was also surprisingly rare in the data. Similarly, candidacy numbers were missing from the posts. These points indicate that the candidates were neglecting to see these as opportunities to add publicity and remind the electorate of their numbers, slogans, and other central things that require repetition; sometimes, the brand that sticks is the strongest. The quality of content matters, but also the repetition, memorability and recognition are crucial. The lack of website linking might also be because the candidates viewed it as unnecessary since the link was permanently on the ‘about’ section of the page. However, some utilized their posts effectively by adding links at the end of their post, especially in cases where they wrote and shared blog posts: I do not approve of a society where only the social welfare office is common to the immigrants and the Finns. More on the blog: http://sampoterho.fi/?p=4199 (Appendix 2, A34.) These types of short statements just described the candidate’s stance, thus constructing the topic politician brand type. In this way, they could argue policies in more depth on their personal platforms, such as in blogs, and engage in discussions there. Possibly this also helped to limit criticism because seeing the blog and commenting required additional effort on the part of the reader to move to another platform. But in these cases, the discussion would appear on the blog and not in my data. 5.2.7! Vote for our party leader Some minor party promotion was visible in the category of praising and expressing support. My data showed little praising or expressing support for candidates, or political or non-political actors in the posts. Virtual back-patting (see Svensson, 2014) as in the acknowledgment or praise given to other politicians, was rare in the data. This shows that even though the data was collected from the leading politicians' posts, they were not promoting the party or their peer politicians on Acta Wasaensia 177 their page as much as could have been be expected. This could be because, in the Finnish campaign system, the candidates also compete against other candidates from their own party (see Railo & Ruohonen, 2016: 296), thus making it less appealing to promote other candidates, even as a party leader. Also, in their study on Facebook interaction, Heiss, Shmuck and Matthes (2018) found decreased engagement when a politician’s own party candidates were referenced, so similar results may have been noted by the candidates in earlier campaigns. Cases where other candidates were praised were found when the vote-puller candidates' posts supported their party leader: Our party leader Jussi Halla-aho, IS from one debate after another the most calm, reasonable and smart behaving party leader. Everyone else is shouting more and more, panic yellers, with no clear direction. Everyone else wants to fill Finland with cheap labor and security threats. As a Finn Party member it is easy to be and breathe in civilized, genuine patriotic company. Finland needs calm, firm and patriotic nationalistic politics. Join! Vote Finland back!MMMM (Appendix 2, A30.) These kinds of supportive posts included descriptions of personal characteristics. However, it was focused on the rhetorical skills and performance required from a politician (see Isotalus & Almonkari, 2012). Thus, the persona representations here were the professional and the networking politician. The networking politician was represented by the candidate expression of their support, and a professional brand type of the party leader was constructed through virtual back- patting (Svensson, 2014). For the Finns Party, the concentrated visibility aspect was prominent. Regardless of the absence of the party leader's own pages from the data, the presence of the party leader was undeniable in the posts and comments of both the other Finn Party candidates, and also the opposing party candidates. This party leader was communicated so often and intensely through descriptions of both professional and private content, that their brand was at least as recognizable as the candidates whose pages were included in the data, and thus became part of the analysis. Examples were found for candidates promoting themselves and their party through the idea of making someone the prime minister. This showed both support for the party leader, but also a strong trust in their personal brand, possibly even creating the impression of a non-selfish candidate: The last campaign day is starting from Narinkkatori. Tomorrow, remember to write 222 in the ballot and lets make Petteri Orpo the next prime minister! #BZ2019 #NationalCoalitionParty. (Appendix 2, A28.) 178 Acta Wasaensia It is necessary to note that this was a candidate whose posts were possibly produced by a campaign team. In this way, the candidate’s page was used for promoting both his party and himself on this call to vote, possibly also benefiting from advancing another popular politician. My analysis showed that most candidates, especially the party leaders, who were members in the current parliament or ministers, expressed their gratitude to former colleagues on their last parliament session: On Tuesday, it was the last session in the parliament of the parliamentary season. A lot has been going on in the past four years. Work for the Finnish people. Responsibilities have grown. I thank the voters, the parliamentary representatives, the ministers and everyone else for their co-operation. A big thanks to home for their support. I am also running for parliament next season. (Appendix 2, A29.) These emotional and genuine expressions were negotiating the humane politician along with the networking and professional politician. The aspect of career was emphasized when communicating people’s hard work and collaboration, but simultaneously the candidates were expressing their own dedication and emotion when discussing their feelings about the finished season. These types of messages created the impression of a personal connection and the importance of the work the politician does. The concentrated visibility of the party leader was used to promote the party’s candidates. In the data, the party leaders were posting content praising the other candidates of the party: Started the day right after 5 in the morning. Should be at MTV3 already by 6.30. From there, we have been on the move. An interview with Iltalehti. Nice coffee meeting in Hagalund together with many of our great Uusimaa candidates. Now its time to unwind from today. Tomorrow its Western Uusimaa. (switch to Finnish). Busy day. Two TV debates. I also had time to visit the parliament. The house was pretty empty and quiet. Then to Espoo to meet the voters. We have enormously qualified, nice and excited candidates in Uusimaa. (Appendix 2, A35.) This type of content mainly constructed the professional and networked politician brand types. However, by using emotional and personal characteristics and describing their feelings on the activities, the candidate also negotiated the humane politician. This way, they produced content that engaged the electorate and presented a more authentic (Enli, 2015b) and humane (McGregor, 2017) self. Acta Wasaensia 179 The negative messaging and battling with rival candidates presented in the study by Laaksonen et al. (2017) was not visible in the data. However, it did occur in the comment section by the public. This supports my findings on engagement as well. Particularly, the Finnish candidates in my data were not campaigning with negativity or attacks on Facebook, even though Strandberg (2008) has suggested a negative tone for Finnish campaign communication exists on social media. 5.3! Replying to Comments The replies to comments were analyzed to see if candidates were present and provided answers to the public. As the qualitative analysis of the posts shows, the candidates used their posts mainly for one-way communication with the public. However, it was necessary to see whether they were present and interacting with the public around the issues raised. This could be done by continuing the discussion on the comment stream, or by replying directly to that particular comment. The replies to the comments are presented in Table 10. The relation figure for each politician is calculated by dividing the number of replies by the total amount of comments. This figure is comparable with the average figure of 0.010022, which is the average of all replies divided by all the comments. For some candidates in the data, their personal or party assistants responded with their own names to the comments. These are marked with an ‘x’ in the assistant replies column. As Table 10 shows, there were relatively few replies to comments in the data. Thus, interaction of a conversational nature seems relatively low, based on the data. But regardless of the high number of comments, the candidates only rarely responded them. Four candidates also have 0 in their replies, so their relation figure of comments and replies was 0. For most of the candidates, the replies were expressions of gratitude for the support. However, candidates Andersson, Mykkänen, Sipilä, Henriksson, Marin, and Peltokangas also discussed topic issues in their replies. These did not lead to further discussion and the comments may have continued, but the replies were unique or one-off, so no dialogue was continued. When there was a response to policy issues, the public often expressed their gratitude to candidates who did reply. The candidates Sipilä, Andersson, and Marin, and their assistants corrected comments by adding information or linking to the party programs or reminding the public of politicians involved in particular decision-making processes raised in the comments. Most often, these corrections were made in issues where Finns Party's supporters were accusing the candidates of decisions related to, for example, immigration. According to Benoit's (2007) 180 Acta Wasaensia functional theory on campaign communication, this type of response would be categorized as defense, which is the least used function in campaigning. He does not view defense as efficient use of time resources; even at its best, the candidate can only mitigate the damage, and at its worst, it can also draw more attention to the original critique. Ultimately, the relatively low number of replies suggests that candidates chose to use their time more efficiently, as Benoit (2007) has suggested. Table 10. Responding in replies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andidate Orpo also had resources for social media, since ministers have personal assistants and he was the party leader for a party that wants to portray itself as an interactive party. This was mentioned by the communication officer of the National Coalition party when I asked how the social media content of the candidates was produced. The party line in communication and additional resources was seen in the candidate's assistants' active responses to the comments. However, these did not engage dialogue, and the public did not usually continue the discussion. Candidate Orpo himself had written three replies, and in one of them he responded to confirm the breed of Pessi, the dog often seen in his campaign and family photos and brought up in the posts. Acta Wasaensia 181 Candidate Peltokangas had the highest number of replies, although most of these were expressions of gratitude for support. However, it is noteworthy that this relatively high number indicated presence, and that the candidate was attentive to their messages, both reading and responding to them. For the other candidates, replies seemed random, as they were not directed to each post and comment, or patterned in other ways. Together with the limited number of replies, this indicated that politicians did not go through all of the content on their pages, and even if they did participate in the discussions, their replies were random comments given when there was time, instead of taking the time to do it. In the case of the party Movement Now, candidate Harkimo had already been a parliamentary representative for a season prior to 2019. The new party that he represented in the election was not officially defined as a political party, but more of a "movement of the people." One idea for this movement was more active interaction with the public through online platforms. Accordingly, this candidate's page presented an interesting exception in the data as the movement specifically stated that they use social media for soliciting ideas and expect the public to participate in agenda-setting through it. This would imply that their candidates, especially their leading candidate, would have a specific focus on communicating and constructing their brand on Facebook specifically. Compared to the other candidates in the data, the candidate was unique in the number of responses to comments. However, these were not posted as replies, but as new comments, so they appeared in the comment thread. While Harkimo was not posting as much as several other candidates in the data, he showed more response activity than other candidates. Thus, the candidate did exploit the two- way communication possibilities of Facebook more than other candidates, which is an opportunity stated by researchers such as Nelimarkka et al. (2020) to have been neglected in the past. The candidate discussed the movement mainly through video content on the page, so text-based posts were few, even though there were many comments. In terms of research practicality, this limited my results since videos were excluded from the scope of the study. A particular observation was that several comments responded with "shared", referring to the movement's idea of mobilizing the electorate to share their content and message. In this, they showed some similarity in the success in mobilization reported by Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 254, 306–307), as well as Kovala and Pöysä (2017: 257) for the Finns Party in earlier elections. Another strategy of the movement was to recruit recognized candidates to exploit their already established media exposure, hence focusing on the individualization dimension using the concentrated visibility. 182 Acta Wasaensia 5.4! Summarizing the Analysis of the Posts The candidates utilized the added exposure perspective when attaching topics to current events such as negotiating environment policies when a children's demonstration took place. Here, they could benefit from the media exposure of the event, while simultaneously promoting their own visibility. However, the media focus was forgotten when sharing their own content. Some candidates made party communication visible on their own page, thus promoting the networked politician, even to the extent that all messages were communicated with a ‘party first’ angle. Effectively, the candidate was not communicating anything in their own words. For the party leaders, the slogans of parties and their party communication varied. Some candidates, especially party leaders, used party slogans or party communication throughout the data. In this way, the concentrated visibility dimension was used to benefit the party, but it can also be viewed that the candidates were representing their professional and networked brand by connecting themselves with their party brand and the party ideals. Thus, they could benefit from the more prominent exposure and party recognition, instead of just making their own personal brand more known. A similar connection with the party brand was seen when some candidates separated from individualization, and discussed topics and shared information on their party's point of view. Instead of mentioning their own opinion or activities, everything was communicated through the party or with a collective voice of discussing ‘us’. This was especially the case with the party leaders, and in this way, the party leader became the representative of their party, thus molding their personal brand tightly with that of the party, emphasizing the professional and networked politician. Similar effects can be seen in broadcast media, where it is usually the party leader who communicates the political agendas and topic issues of the party during interviews and debates. In the data, their exposure was also used to represent the party ideals and collect votes for the party. My results mainly support !imunjak's (2018) study on Croatian politicians, concluding that politicians use social media to distribute information on campaign activities, instead of representing their persona or themselves as individuals or discussing political issues. The number of topic messages found in the data aligns with the results of earlier studies (van Dalen, 2015), and topic issues represent a small portion of the data. The topic messages also support my findings on the idea of these pages being used as a bulletin board, where opinions are rarely asked, or debate encouraged. Instead, information is merely transmitted and stated. Acta Wasaensia 183 Mainly because of the limited interaction shown by the candidates, the public could voice their opinions in their comments, almost free from correction or response. This way, the public and their comments gained a visible public space where their opinions were heard, not necessarily by the politicians, but by the other public members. Thus, these comments were also used to negotiate politicians' personas. The degree of interaction involved in this negotiation was limited, and there was only the initial post seen as a trigger for the comments that the public wrote. But these affected the candidates’ brands because they created an opinion atmosphere, where they emphasized their own specific ideas of individual candidates, and even negotiated topics that were not necessarily brought up in the posts. In the next chapter, I will present my findings for these comments, and I will also analyze the engagement related to the posts in the last section of the chapter. 184 Acta Wasaensia 6! POLITICIANS’ PERSONAL BRANDS CONSTRUCTED BY THE PUBLIC In this chapter, I analyze the comments of the public in relation to the personal brand construction in the politicians' public pages. This presents the public as actors in the brand construction and supports Matheson's (2016) argument that the power of social media is shifting to the active members of the public by making them actors. Politicians are addressing the electorate, i.e. those who can vote in the election. However, Facebook is a public forum, so the discussion on the page is available to the public, meaning everyone who chooses to read and participate. The examples are presented in Appendix 3, coded separately with B1-B61 in a table which shows the original and the translated citations. In Chapter 7, I will discuss the analysis of how the personal brand of the political candidates and its construction is negotiated in the data. Chapter 7 combines the analysis results of posts and comments with the affordances presented by Facebook in section 3.3.2. My analysis of the comments is conducted similarly to the analysis of the candidates' posts. The only difference is that in these, the public speaks of the candidates, thus evaluating them from outside, while with the posts, it was the candidates themselves who produced the content. The unit of analysis for this chapter is one complete comment. The operationalization from Nelimarkka et al. (2020) was modified and used to analyze the content of the comments. Secondly, the operationalization that Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) have suggested for analyzing personalization in the media was modified to better fit my Facebook context and the content produced by the public. The representations for personas of politicians inspired by the model of the academic self by Marshall, Moore and Barbour (2020: 190) are analyzed and formulated into brand type representations in Chapter 7 (see Figure 15). Lastly, the comments and the results from the first two analysis rounds were reflected on through the affordances of Facebook (Table 1), inspired by the work of Blegind, Jensen and Dyrby (2013) on the Facebook use of political parties. In this analysis, the categories were selected using a data-based approach, but they followed and represented the categories also chosen by Nelimarkka et al. (2020). Specifically, they placed the comment content into the following categories: information and opinion sharing, seeking information and opinions, critiquing and arguing, sharing personal information, socio-emotional functions, formal campaigning, and praising and expressing support. As Table 11 shows, I added and removed some categories after a consideration of the data. Since the categories of information and opinion sharing and formal campaigning were not found in the comments and were more relevant in the posts, they were removed from the Acta Wasaensia 185 analysis of the comments. Also, rising from the data, I added categories for sharing own content and evaluating performances, which were both highly visible in the comments. Table 11. Comments categories and coding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�$"*"A-$&0+& )0)K#0$"*"A-$&-A*0+?C&#+-"?")D&?($6& ,.$%?%-"&%.#1("#$("$$%&%.#1( && !2-+")D&0<)&A0)*()*& !2-+")D&H$0D?C&0*2(+&7(>"-&A0)*()*C&?2-+")D&0<)&?#((A2(?& I;-$4-*"0)&06&#(+60+7-)A(?& I;-$4-*")D&>(H-*(&#(+60+7-)A(?&0+&0*2(+&-##(-+-)A(?&")& *2(&7(>"-& These categories were also coded for subcategories, in order to get a more detailed description of the content. Thus, for example, the category of formal campaigning was also coded for campaign trail updates, mobilizing, and calls to vote. The results for these more detailed categories are presented in this chapter. For information and opinion sharing, the topic issue comments were mainly easy to separate. However, sometimes a purely stated "agree" was harder to code, and in these cases the comments were analyzed together with the original post and the other comments in these situations. In this way, it was possible to mostly code each comment appropriate to its purpose, even if only one word was stated. Information and opinion sharing comments typically expressed on opinion on a political matter, presented arguments for or against it, or expressed support or opposition for a topic issue. The possibility of misinterpretation was so large for pure emojis in the comments that they have been left out of the analysis, even though they could often have been coded for a category. For example, the Finnish flag was often used to express support for the Finns Party candidates. 186 Acta Wasaensia The original operationalization for personalization from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) has four variables; General visibility, concentrated visibility, the characteristics of politicians, and politicians' personal lives. The same variables were used as the main categories for my coding. However, their coding instructions were modified by changing a few categories so as to be more suitable for the data, context, and aim. These were analyzed from a qualitative perspective for each category, and coded with the first operationalization from Nelimarkka et al. (2020). Since social media comments are typically shorter than news articles, the categorization for each post was whether the politician, party, or another party or politician from another party was referenced. This differs from Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer’s (2012) coding instructions for general visibility, where the total number of references to the politician and the party were counted for each newspaper article. Concentrated visibility refers to the amount party leaders were referenced in relation to a total number of references to political actors. Here, only a reference to the candidate's role as a party leader was categorized. The information and opinions category of posts were those where the public asked the candidate for an opinion on a topic issue, or if something will be done on a pressing matter. The general visibility was coded for these when the inquiries explicitly addressed the candidate instead of the party, for example, by using the "you" form in the question unless these were directly addressed to the party leader, which applied to the concentrated visibility category. References to the candidate were counted for the posts when the public used a clear "you" or "you and your party" phrasing. If they used "your party" or "The x party decided" type of references, these were not coded as personal or having concentrated visibility because the comment addressed the party and was asking for the party's perspective, thereby using the candidate as a messenger. By making these distinctions, these references showed how the communication was performed and with whose voice. For politicians' characteristics, references were coded for competence, leadership, credibility, rhetorical skills, and the candidate's appearance. Sharing personal information was coded for comments when the public referenced the candidate's family, spouse, home, leisure-time, childhood, or non-political past, such as complimenting them on their craft skills or commenting on their education path. However, they were also coded as political if the comments were joined with a reference to a political characteristic like morals or credibility or their understanding of a policy issue such as parenting or because of their previous career. Acta Wasaensia 187 For the personal lives of politicians, references to family, past life or upbringing, leisure time, and love life were coded. These last two categories were modified most, so as to understand the personal brand construction and allow a more deeper exploration. I therefore added coding for family, childhood and hometown, leisure-time and interests, love life, and ‘other’ which included issues of health and religion. For example, a comment might state that the candidate cannot understand what living in the country is because they are "Helsinki-people". References to family or spouse might be, for example, "You are such a good-looking couple". The categories of family, love life, and other issues like health and religion were discussed as intimate in the analysis. At the same time, past, childhood, hometown, and leisure time were referenced as falling in the private life dimension. For the politicians' characteristics, the references were coded if the public stated the candidate's value or highlighted their competence on an issue, for example, through their background. Leisure-time and interests were coded when the public commented on the candidates' choice of free-time activities or their skills in a hobby, for example. Inquiries regarding these were also considered as references to them since they expressed interest. Therefore, these were seen as something that the public wanted to include in the candidate's personal brand. The same comment could be coded for several categories, and often, comments could be personal and political at the same time. For example, there could be a comment on debate performance and the candidate's past career as an athlete. This would then be coded as political content for evaluating performance, as well as sharing personal life and discussing past careers. I will first turn to the findings from my quantitative analysis. Section 6.1 presents the results for the content of the comments written by the public from a quantitative perspective, and presents the percentages for the most visible types of content. After this, a thorough manual analysis of all the comments is presented, together with samples from the comments. The last section presents what the data tells us about people’s engagement with the candidates and their posts. 6.1! Large Support Expressed in the Content The categories and their visibility in the 15,462 comments were spread more evenly than the categories seen in the posts. The comment numbers in the manual analysis did not match with the comment numbers reported by Facepager (presented in Table 7). This is a shortcoming of the program, and despite several collection rounds, some of the posts and comments were consistently returned as empty lines in the Excel spreadsheet. These were disregarded in the manual 188 Acta Wasaensia analysis, hence resulting in a conflicting total number of posts and comments. However, this error was balanced in the data, and since the post and comment numbers are large, it did not have any significant impact on the analysis. The main content categories of the comments are presented in Figure 19. Table 12 presents comment content categories that were included in more than 10 % of all the posts. Decimals have been rounded off from the figures presented in the tables. Table 13 shows the content categories that were present in 5-10% of all the posts. Table 14 presents the categories visible in 1-5% of the posts. The remaining categories were only present in less than 1% of all the posts, so they were not judged to be as significant as the data categorized in Tables 12, 13, and 14. It is noteworthy that also in the comments, the content was mainly positive. Most (34%) of the content shown in the comments were expressions of support for the candidate. In addition to these was also the support shown with emojis. However, these are not included in the calculations since only the text was analyzed. The second-largest category was topic messages, with 28% of the posts. This shows that even though the public engaged more with posts where personal life was negotiated, they still actively discussed topic issues. This aligns with Gerodimos and Justinussen's (2015) study, where the public engaged more with campaign messages and policy-orientated posts in the Obama campaign. This also follows the pattern seen in the posts, and the majority of comments addressed similar topics. The third-largest category (24%) praised a political actor. The difference of these when compared with the largest category of support was that here, the candidate was being described in addition to support. However, these were not always promises to vote, and some clearly stated that their vote would go to another party or candidate, but, for example, the candidate in question had been excellent in the debate or had good views on a particular issue. Notably, candidate Essayah was often referred to this way in the data. Regarding Facebook and the 2019 election, the conclusions of Hakala and Vesa (2013: 201, 233) about social media content being separate and different from mainstream media content does not hold, when evaluated against the findings of this study. Most of the themes and discussions in the data followed the mainstream media content, except for some more minor topic issues and some disinformation shares in the comments. This suggests, that as Karlsen and Enjolras (2016) argue, there is in fact a synergy between traditional media and social media in political communication. ! Acta Wasaensia 189 Table 12. Most visible content in the comments !"&'>.*+( A(.?(-.#&'#&B(#CEJBKL;( IF#+(??")D&?4##0+*&60+&-&A-)>">-*(& PR&O& 10#"A&7(??-D(& SW&O& ,+-"?")D&-�$"*"A-$&-A*0+&^A-)>">-*(T#0$"*"A"-)_& SR&O& B"?-D+((")D&0+&(F#+(??")D&+(X(A*"0)& SN&O& !2-+")D&")60+7-*"0)& UR&O& '+"*"G4")D&-�$"*"A-$&-A*0+&^#0$"*"A"-)TA-)>">-*(_& UR&O& Strandberg's (2008) evaluation of the negative tone in political campaigning in social media was not supported by the analysis of the posts, but is supported by the analysis of the comments. Even though a positive style is regarded as more appropriate than a negative style in media (Waterloo et al., 2017) and positive comments represented the majority of the comments, the fourth largest category (14%) was expressing critique towards the political actor, in this case, the politician whose posts were commented on. This shows that the public discussion online were more negative in their tone, regardless of the lack of negative tone in the original posts. This prominent negativity indicated that the public discussing matters on the candidates' pages were not always their supporters or followers, so the pages attracted discussion from both sides. Primarily, the Finns Party supporters had spread data on each candidate's page that promoted their own party policies and candidates by criticizing the other party leaders. Table 12 shows that while the candidates received support and expressions of praise in the comments, they also gained a significant amount of criticism. Importantly, it is essential to remember that both the criticism and support received added to the construction of the candidates’ brands since the discussion was public. Table 13 presents the categories visible in 5–10% of the posts. Even though campaign-trail updates were largely visible in the posts, they were only commented on in 7% of the comments. There was an apparent discrepancy in how the candidates and the public used Facebook, and while candidates announced campaign updates, the public was more interested in discussing topic issues and the candidates involved. The opponents of the candidate whose posts were commented on were critiqued in 7% of all the comments. Posts that addressed the candidates appearance on media engaged the public as well, and 6% of the comments were performance evaluations of the politicians participation in television debates. This shows an interesting dimension of Facebook as a forum where the public comment and discuss their feelings and views on these debates. The media typically guides this type of discussion to Twitter, where the viewers are 190 Acta Wasaensia encouraged to discuss matters in real-time using hashtags. They can even post questions there, which are often presented in the program. But regardless of this, some users move these discussions onto the Facebook comment threads on the candidate's page. However, most of this discussion was on performance evaluations, and while opinions were stated, wishes were often expressed in other categories. Table 13. Visible content in the comments !"&'>.*+( A(.?(-.#&'#&B(#CEJBKL;( Y+((*")D?& UN&O& !*-*")D&-)&0#")"0)&0+&*-9")D&-�?"*"0)& W&O& =D+((")D&0+&(F#+(??")D&-AA(#*-)A(& Z&O& B"?-D+((")D&0+&(F#+(??")D&+(X(A*"0)&*0&0##0)()*?& Z&O& '-7#-"D)&*+-"$&0)&7(>"-& Z&O& ,(+60+7-)A(&(;-$4-*"0)& V&O& IF#+(??")D&-)&">(-C&<"?2C&0+&?4DD(?*"0)& V&O& =?9")D&60+&")60+7-*"0)& M&O& Even though relatively small, a significant category of asking for information was featured in 5% of all comments. This supports the idea that while there is little evidence for agenda-setting from political actors (Skogerbø & Krumsvik, 2015), the public also show little interest in it. Even when information was asked for, it was rarely about topic issues. Mostly, people asked whether a candidate would visit a particular location, or what their candidate number was. This is noteworthy because it showed that the candidate's Facebook page did not give this central information easily enough for the public to find, even though they were looking for the information on the page. As the post analysis showed, only a few candidates made an effort to remind the public of their candidate number in their posts. Several categories were present in 1-5% of the comments (Table 14). Personal information was included in only 4% of the comments, showing that the more personal nature of Facebook communication is not very visible in the comments. The public was not encouraged to comment on the private dimension since it was almost completely lacking in the posts. However, they engaged with it more than with neutral tone or official topic issue posts, which indicates that the public was interested in these private dimension representations. The candidates’ views were only rarely asked for, and only 2% of the comments sought an opinion from the candidate. While topic issues were discussed, the public rarely asked for an opinion, which could result from the lack of responses to comments seen in the data. The public might have felt that the effort of asking would be wasted when Acta Wasaensia 191 they saw no interaction happening on the page. Also, the supporting public already knew their party’s and candidate’s stance, which would suggest that regardless of the prominent negativity seen in the comments, it was mostly supporters who were commenting on the candidates’ pages. As Table 14 shows, the parties were rarely discussed in the comments. Only in 3% of the content was there an expression of support for the party, while expressions of support for the candidate were the most visible category. This aligns with the idea that on Facebook, the candidates come first and their personas matter most, which Enli (2015b) proposes to be the case for all social media. Table 14. Less visible content in the comments !"&'>.*+( A(.?(-.#&'#&B(#CEJBKL;( !2-+")D&#(+?0)-$&")60+7-*"0)& R&O& IF#+(??")D&6(($")D?& R&O& ,$-")&(70X"& R&O& '+"*"G4")D&-&)0)K#0$"*"A-$&-A*0+& P&O& '-7#-"D)&*+-"$&4#>-*(?&0+&#+070*"0)& P&O& IF#+(??"0)&06&;0*")D& P&O& IF#+(??")D&?4##0+*&60+&*2(&#-+*.& P&O& =?9")D&60+&-)&0#")"0)& S&O& `09")D&0+&(F#+(??")D&2470+&0+&-74?(7()*& S&O& IF*()>")D&+(-$K$"6(&")*(+-A*"0)& U&O& '077()*&0)&0*2(+&7(>"-&#+(?()A(& U&O& '-$$&*0&;0*(& U&O& !4##0+*&60+&-)0*2(+&#-+*.TA-)>">-*(& U&O& Only 1% of the comments expressed support for other candidates (Table 14). Usually, these were comments about voting for candidate Halla-aho, and this shows that most engagement on the candidate's posts was related to them and would again suggest that it was mostly their supporters who were reading and engaging with those posts. However, there were exceptions. Most of the comments opposing other candidates followed the rhetoric of the Finns Party supporters. This implies that, as stated before about earlier elections, their supporters were also well mobilized in the 2019 election in regard to social media campaign communication for the party and their candidates. The hostile tone in the comments was also shown in criticism against non-political actors. Particularly, 3% of the comments critiqued different media such as the national broadcasting company Yle or MTV3 and their journalists for being biased during television debates. This fairly large portion of commenting on the media 192 Acta Wasaensia was also in line with the large portion of debate performance evaluations, and showed that the public had moved to Facebook to discuss television debates. Also, in 1% of the comments critiquing other discussants or the Facebook algorithm function was present. This is what Suominen, Saarikoski and Vaahensalo (2019: 29) refer to as meta-level discussion, and often these types of comments expressed, for example, frustration with seeing "the wrong candidate" on a feed or reading comments that felt irrelevant or poorly presented. But while these show a lack of understanding of the algorithm and engagement functions of Facebook, they also illustrate the need people feel to express their frustration over how political discussion occurs on Facebook. A limited number of policy initiatives were posted by both the candidates and the public in the data. As an example, the criticism towards Yle manifested in a shared citizen's initiative to remove the mandatory Yle taxation used to finance Yle's activities. these types of initiatives, the campaign time is favorable given the added interest in politics, and gives them more exposure, especially when posted on the leading candidates' pages with concentrated visibility. In the next chapter, I will present findings from the manual analysis of the comments, together with examples from the data. 6.2! Comments as Acts to Negotiate the Brand Analyzing the comments manually showed that Farina’s (2019) application of conversation analysis to Facebook comments did not apply to most of the data. This is because instead of the post-answer-model used when commenting, the comments appeared more as individual posts. They rarely replied to anything that the politicians had posted, and instead they were individual shouts or comments which has also been noted by Schwartz (2015) in relation to Danish politicians Facebook pages’ comments. This supports a more direct content analysis approach on the comments instead of studying interaction in the post-comment-pairs seen in the data. Acta Wasaensia 193 Figure 19. Comment types Figure 19 shows how the content on the comments was categorized into different types of content and how the manual analysis is presented in this section. These different types are discussed in the analysis, together with how the political personal brand is negotiated in them. Different issues were emphasized depending on the politician, and some content types did not apply to each politician who was considered in the analysis. 6.2.1! How about my issue? The public used comments for soliciting opinions and asking for information from the candidates. These questions were mainly neutral, and they presented a narrow scope of topics often divergent from the topics that the candidates had communicated in the posts. Most comments were more like individual shoutouts with no connection to the post in question, except in the cases of the announcement of debates and performance evaluations related to the debates. Sometimes they presented specific questions on smaller topics that had not been discussed in the media. The need to cover more topics than were in the media and to solicit opinions from the candidates presented a need for the topic politician introduced by Isotalus and Almonkari (2014). However, it is remarkable how few of these topics and policy questions there were, even when brought up by the public. This limited content on topic issues has also been reported by Van Dalen et al. (2015), and the felt absence of interaction resulting from a lack of replies from candidates could explain the limited number of topic issues brought up in the comments. When compared to analyzing personal performance and references to candidates as personas, any topic discussion was minimal in the data. !"##$%&' !"#$%&' ("))$#)*%#+,-**#$%&+ ./#*%0$%&' -*12'2$3*' $%#*-1(#$"% 4"5$(' )*++1&*+ 6-*+*%#1#$"%' *71281#$"% 6*-+"%12' ("%#*%# (")*&*+*,%-'./$0'"%,).10,%2 9*0$1' (-$#$($+) :##1(;+<' (-$#$($+) =">'1?"8#' )@'$++8*A B$-*(#'1##1(;+' 1%0'+#-"%&' (-$#$($+) CD1-$%&' 5*-+"%12' $%3"-)1#$"% C"($12$E$%&' >$#D'#D*' (1%0$01#*+ 6-1$+$%&' 1%0' */5-*++$%&' +855"-# C$&%'1%0' +D1-*'#D$+' $%$#$1#$7* F$(*'G"?' "%'#D*' 0*?1#* CD1-$%&' ">%' ("%#*%# 194 Acta Wasaensia Policy questions were often presented neutrally with no attitude towards the candidate: Hi Ville! Will there be a new tax break for car taxation in the middle of this environmental fuss or is it going to be the other way, and how about fuel taxation? (Appendix 3, B1.) These comments did not usually argue for or against the candidate. Instead, they looked for their stance or political views for different issues. The issues varied from one candidate to another. However, some topics were either repeated in the same form in all or some feeds, or by several individuals so that they were visible throughout the data. These common topics included immigration, electricity prices and the Caruna case, electric cars, the airport of Malmi, previous economic policies from earlier parliamentary seasons, environment issues, the labor union taxation system, education export, taxation, nurse ratios in health care, Israel questions, selling wine in grocery stores, income flexibility, and social welfare. The information-seeking shown in the data implied that the public was either looking for answers or for final confirmation to support their voting decision from Facebook. This supports Railo et al.’s (2016: 334) descriptions of many Finnish voters reassessing their positions between elections. In these, the public also showed that they were looking for the brand type of a listening politician. They wanted to question the candidates directly on Facebook and resented those candidates who were absent or who did not reply there. By allowing this conversation and responding to the questions, the candidates could have promoted themselves as listening and communicative politicians who consider the public. My data showed party positions and government formation as critical issues: Politics is a team sport, teambuilding and majority decision making. Single parties cannot change or decide a thing alone, even if they had more will than David against Goliath. So Mauri: who would you pick to govern with The Finns party and why? Good luck for the last meters of the campaign! !]^_ (Appendix 3, B2.) One of the most pressing questions for the public seemed to be forming the government and which parties each candidate would welcome to the process. This highlights the importance of party selection in the Finnish multi-party system (see von Schoultz, 2016: 166) and supports the declining curve of the individual over party importance for voting decisions reported by Isotalo et al. (2019: 16). However, my analysis suggests that based on many similar questions and their Acta Wasaensia 195 presentation style, most of the questions concerning government formation came from the Finns Party supporters. My results showed that the public felt voting districts to be problematic, and they could not always vote for their preferred candidate and so turned to them for recommendations: Elina Lepomäki - Who in the Helsinki district should I vote for to get more supporters of your line of thinking into the parliament? (Appendix 3, B3.) These types of questions indicated that certain politicians had convinced the public to trust the candidate to tell them who would share similar views and values to themselves. This suggests that, especially by exploiting the concentrated visibility and party leaders' visibility, virtual back-patting (Svensson, 2014) could also work on Facebook as a party strategy. This would apply especially in the parliamentary elections where different districts have their own candidates; albeit while it is usually the capital region whose candidates are more visible in the media and have more recognition. My results suggest that these candidates would have a power of recommendation for supporting candidates in other regions if this were exploited. Some past decisions and political actions required clarification: Why was the Caruna sale done? (Appendix 3, B4.) How about using the ministerial car during the campaign tour? (Appendix 3, B5.) These comment examples portrayed how candidates' past actions were also considered part of their persona, but through interaction, the candidates were offered possibilities to explain themselves. My data indicated that the public used comments to ask for clarification and to understand issues, even though sometimes these questions were also used to bring up controversial decisions as criticism and to remind other voters. Especially, past policy decisions that the public remembered from the media had become part of the candidates' brand as their footprint for past actions. Those candidates already having a role in the government needed to carry on their duties as ministers, carry the weight of decisions that were in their close history and not always positive for the public, and they were watched over more closely because of the added exposure they had because of their role. This role was strongly part of their current politician brand employed while they were applying for their next representative term. At the same time, they were getting added exposure which allowed them to voice their agenda to wider audiences and 196 Acta Wasaensia construct a stronger brand; one example being their already large follower base on social media accounts such as Facebook, and also having the concentrated visibility aspect (see Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). My results showed that the candidates could construct their brands in a relatively peaceful environment on Facebook. The unique examples of repetition were a few topic issues that were posted to each candidate’s page (see example in Appendix 3, B6). These offered the candidate an opportunity to manifest their listening and professional brand types by offering them a chance to show they cared about the questions and to express their opinion. At the same time, the person making a query was seeking wider publicity for their comment (so general visibility), and the focus on individual politicians was exploited (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). 6.2.2! Direct attacks and strong criticism While the category of critiquing and arguing yeilded few results in the posts, the comments included an abundance of direct attacks and other negativity expressed towards the candidate. These were directed to both the personal and professional politician brand types, and they showed the emotional connection, because the public showed strong emotion towards the candidates. There was also criticism of non-political actors, especially the journalists and media companies that hosted election debates. Some comments in the data were directly hateful and filled the definition of hate speech: The affairs of our country will be fine when you Juha Urpilainen, Stubb, Katainen and Sale are placed in front of an execution squad and condemned for treason. (Appendix 3, B7.) These types of direct threats to a politician's life or threat-denoting comments were fairly frequent, particularly towards the party leaders who had minister roles in the government of 2015. These included attacks on the candidate's private life or characteristics, and notably no assessment of the candidate’s professional work or policies was made, and the attacks were directly on the person. Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 232, 240, 256) suggest that private and intimate content can provoke the electorate, but my data indicated that instead, the public used those dimensions of content to try to provoke the candidates. It also implied that the public took politics personally. Acta Wasaensia 197 These types of attacks were also a good example showing that online, people tend to think that regardless of the public nature of social media posts and comments, they appear to be less worried of any legal considerations or consequences. It also supports Turtiainen and Östman's (2013) statement that the public does not necessarily understand the public nature of online contexts. In many instances, the attacks were direct, with even verbal (written) references to death or physical violence. In terms of brand construction, there were no specific types that these comments constructed, as they attacked each type and highlighted negative perspectives of the candidates and their brands. The harsh criticism was often in the form of attacks against the persona, in the form of name-calling, references to decisions made, or combinations of both: I hope head of the party leader term will end from this turncoat liar - one wouldn’t believe he is religious. (Appendix 3, B8.) In this example, both the professional and the humane politician brand types were represented by referencing the candidate's political role, their credibility as a person, and also their faith. By referring to the candidate's faith, the writer was also partly denoting the intimate dimension of the candidate's persona. This reference to private and intimate life dimensions was a typical example of the emotional content and flaming seen in online discussions (Suominen, Saarikoski & Vaahensalo, 2019: 55). As Laaksonen and Pöyry (2018) describe, technology offers the possibility to share privately experienced emotions in public. My data showed that mostly the emotions portrayed among the public during the campaign were mostly frustration and anger for political decisions, which were then turned into malicious personal attacks towards the candidates and their personas: Pekka, it is completely futile to fish for votes with those speeches. You have proved that you are extremely expensive to Finns moneywise! Aren’t you ashamed at all? (Appendix 3, B9.) These attacks were directed at the professional self of the candidate. While politics is about making compromises and many decisions are affirmed in the parliament, the data indicates that particular decisions have been personified. Media cases are also strongly connected to particular candidates and associated with them. This conveys Petrocik's (1996) idea of ‘issue ownership’ and shows how some topics are strongly attached to the politician's brand. Especially, past actions and their exposure is fixed to the personas in social media comments, and the personal brand is an archive of all kinds of interactions, and is hard to reconstruct completely. 198 Acta Wasaensia The harshest criticism in the comments was directed towards the most visible political personas in the current parliament; i.e. the party leaders and current ministers who demonstrated concentrated visibility (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). Those candidates with the most exposure and linkage to communicated issues, also become vulnerable to taking critique for the decisions that are made. One party leader, Antti Rinne, had been the least popular party leader among voters in 2015 (von Schoultz, 2016: 172), which could explain both the criticism and the low engagement on his page. However, according to NFES, his popularity in fact grew from the 2015 to the 2019 elections (Isotalo et al., 2019: 18). In the same study, Juha Sipilä was among the most popular party leaders which did not correlate with the number of negative comments seen in the data. This supports the idea that, in general, voters have strong opinions on party leaders (von Schoultz, 2016: 165). It also challenges the representativeness of Facebook comments as data for accurately reflecting general opinion. The discussion participants even protected some candidates and defended their brand by engaging in possible debates on their behalf. The following example shows that some of the public also considered the private life aspect of the candidates, and reminded other participants of it: The women lions reaching the finals is a great thing. One would think also that Antti can rejoice in it in the midst of the campaign rush, without people giving him shit. <3 (Appendix 3, B10.) This comment referred to another comment, where the candidate’s work motivation was questioned because of their congratulating the Finnish Women’s ice hockey team in the post. The comment questioned his focus and whether the candidate was concentrating on their work if they took time to watch ice hockey games. As suggested by Rudd (2016: 164–165), the public thus replaced media as the watchdog in social media when evaluating what and how the candidates should be doing things, and in this case, what kind of things were appropriate for them to post about and spend their time on as candidates. In this way, the public took it upon themselves to assess what was suitable to be communicated by the candidates on Facebook. Irony was presented in the messages sent to one party leader, suggesting that their appearances are helping another party leader to seem like a better option: The popularity of the Finns party would increase if you would appear one more time to be seen on television. Do you think you could make this happen Antti? (Appendix 3, B11.) Acta Wasaensia 199 Irony and humor were explicitly used in personal attacks coming from Finns Party supporters. These attacks made with irony or sarcasm supported the reported centrality of irony and humor in social media communication (see Gal, 2018; Nikunen, 2018; Reyes, Rosso & Buscaldi, 2012;) and found effective for stimulating engagement (Heiss, Schmuck & Matthes, 2018; Hoffman & Young, 2011). While there were many negative posts against the major parties and candidates, there were almost no direct negative comments towards the candidates representing the Finns Party. It is also noteworthy that for those that were critical towards the Finns Party, it was usually the participants being negative to each other, and not commenting about a particular candidate. In their attacks, the public attached lying, and the idea of being a turncoat to the candidates. Especially, switching parties attracted this type of criticism: Sampo and other defectors: Congratulations on being stranded. I unfortunately voted for you in the last election. Now I have seen what kind of a man you are. Luckily you didn’t make it. Now you should head to the arms of the employment office ladies and think about a jobseeker activity scheme. You can feel the fate of the regular people with Jari Lindström. (Appendix 3, B12.) The references to the so-called “aktiivimalli,” (a jobseeker activity scheme established as an attempt to solve the unemployment problem: Kyyrä, Pesola & Uusitalo, 2019) were an example of the need to understand different types of references to culture and current events when looking to understand online discussions. The familiar “turncoat” reference used to describe politicians and their way of changing their policies and ideas was used a lot in the comments attacking this candidate, and is used to signify “flipping sides.” These comments were not only written as replies to his posts, but also added to the comments seen in other candidates’ feeds. Switching sides seemed to raise more anger in the public’s comments than anything else, and it effectively devalued the morals and credibility of the candidate, and their personal characteristics were often referred to in messages commenting in this way. The disappointment expressed towards the candidates who had changed their party representation showed how sensitive the public is to significant changes, and also how personal it can be to them. Most of these comments would have fulfilled the legal description for at least defamation of character (Penal Code for Finland 531/2000), if not offences that would merit even more severe charges. However, somehow these are disregarded and seen as tolerable when it comes to politicians 200 Acta Wasaensia in social media. A similar type of approach is applied to celebrities, where mean, hurtful, and even severe attacks are seen in the comments on their public social media profiles. In these cases, the public harshly attacked humane, professional, and networked politician brand types by judging the candidates’ choices, connections, their personal lives, and characteristics. These perceptions live long, and these types of messages were made related to issues from even further back than the previous parliamentary season. This implied that the public expected both honesty and consistency from the candidates. Therefore, as part of their professional politician brand, their political past is relevant and also problematic, as the public does not forget negative aspects very quickly. This also supports considerations around the lasting nature of brands, and even with personal development, the old layers stick (boyd, 2014: 33). A softer form of criticism was presented sometimes by way of a one-word rejection or with voting statements, and sometimes they included reasoning for the opposition: The Swedish party does not represent the Swedish speaking Finns anymore. So no. (Appendix 3, B13.) When explained, the criticism also contributed to the candidate’s brand through explanations of, for example, topic issues. The public further allowed the candidate to either react or not, which was also an possibility for forming or influencing the candidate’s brand construction. However, these comments were mainly left unanswered by both the candidate and the public. It was further noteworthy that these were directed both for the candidates and for the parties, which implied that some people were making their voting decisions mainly based on the party, while some were looking at who the candidates were as individuals. The attacks and criticism rarely commented on anything concerning the original posts. For example, several comments included attacks, criticism or negative feelings towards other candidates or parties on the pages of certain politicians. These findings support Picard’s (2015) view that the added interest in people and public discussion encouraged by social media has brought public shaming and bullying to these platforms. They also support Marshall (1997: 3), arguing that when celebrity status politicians express themselves in public, they expose themselves to the possibility of being rejected. In the 2015 electoral campaign study, the public was also seen to be actively producing rejection and expressing critique (Nelimarkka et al., 2020), which the data of this study shows to have continued into the election of 2019. In the comments, the public criticized a perceived lack of competence in certain issues, Acta Wasaensia 201 the candidate’s love life and sexual orientation, and referenced previous party leaders and other party politicians. Nelimarkka et al. (2020) present that previous research suggests Facebook to be less likely to show critical discussion since users would be unlikely to present rejection against the page owners. However, the data proves a completely opposite case, as the negative content seen in the comments was prominent and verbally strong. This supports the idea of the virality of negative emotion (Laaksonen & Pöyry, 2018; Rantasila, 2018) by showing that negativity in the comments leads to more negative commentary. This change from the conditions seen in the election of 2015 could indicate a change in the political discussion and the political atmosphere in Finland in general (which Railo et al., 2016: 333 also predict), but it could also indicate a difference in candidate focus as this study focuses on vote-pullers and party leaders, while Nelimarkka et al. (2020) included all the candidates and looked at a smaller manual sample. As Suominen, Saarikoski and Vaahensalo (2019) describe, social media discussion is sometimes able to be looked at as meta-level text; i.e. discussion about discussing. The category of critiquing and arguing also included examples of criticism towards others commenting on the posts, towards media and their way of presenting the candidates or parties, and expressing frustration with elections and the campaign posts. A frustration with politics was visible in discussion comments such as: nonsense nonsense nonsense (Appendix 3, B14.) Citizens often felt that the politicians were just saying things and not doing anything. These types of comments were a way to bring that frustration out in public. There were also European parliamentary elections in the spring of 2019, and some citizens were becoming tired of elections, which they referred to in the comments. Especially, the data showed resentment towards seeing campaign discussion related to unappealing candidates: Ugh … another clown on my FB feed without an invitation!a`b (Appendix 3, B17.) An advert for this smiley boy in my feed! !ccddeeff Fuck no!! Disgusting... (Appendix 3, B19.) Comments on looks and appearance were rare in the data, which indicated that the public was more focused on other issues such as political topics and performance evaluation. However, they are part of the privatization dimension, and portray a detailed focus on personal characteristics (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). By 202 Acta Wasaensia referring to the candidate as a clown, there was an attempt to undermine their credibility and express disapproval towards them. These posts also showed that not everyone understood how the Facebook logic works. Facebook showed random posts on an individual’s feed based on the platform algorithms; either their friend had liked, commented or shared the post, or they saw the post because of something else defined by the algorithm. Another user tried to correct the algorithm and what is showed to them by making the comment: I am not interested in this page. I am not interested in Li Andersson. Once again Facebook is the father of fake news. I DONT LIKE LI ANDERSSON!!!M ! ! !ghijklmnopqrstuvwx (Appendix 3, B18.) These repetitions of dislike in the comment did not necessarily work as the comment writer intended. Instead, it invited counter-arguments and gave more views to the post through showing it as an engagement in the form of a comment. However, as stated earlier, there was a limited amount of actual discussion. Instead, the comments were more like individual shouts in the data, supporting the observations of Schwartz (2015) in their study on politicians’ Facebook pages. Rather, this type of content showed that unlike the description of Facebook by Nelimarkka et al. (2020), the users also saw content other than that which they have chosen to follow, liked, or otherwise engaged with. Many among the public were unfamiliar with the logic of Facebook and expected to see only the pages that they follow. These types of comments indicate that although some discussion participants were unfamiliar with the platform and its logic, they still engaged in the discussions and followed the campaign communication. Generally, those who showed criticism also opposed moderation: I will post this link again, since the other one was deleted. Lets see how many hours until the green open communication culture censures this one. (Appendix 3, B20.) My analysis showed that the public expected Facebook to be the public sphere where they could voice their opinions and discuss matters (Habermas, 1989), and that moderation harmed the democratic ideal because of censorship. This was also supported with the findings where the public expressed frustration regarding the candidates’ one-sided communication: I don’t think Antti Rinne even reads these comments … (Appendix 3, B21.) Acta Wasaensia 203 Based on my data, the audience was expecting interaction and replies from the candidates, who instead were using their posts only for one-way-communication, and this has also been reported in the studies of Graham et al. (2013) and Farkas and Schwartz (2018). Consequently, this implies that the candidates could benefit from replying and interacting with the public on Facebook and negotiating more of the listening self, instead of just offering the informing self. The data also showed criticism towards non-political actors, mostly media companies, and especially the National Broadcasting Company Yle: Yle is the CNN of Finland. And now in America, the mainstream media is in trouble as they were shouting about Russia collusion for two years which has now been proven to be fake news. Yle is similarly the lackey of Finland's elite. (Appendix 3, B15.) Why did Li Andersson get so much talk time … bad debate leaders, weak. But Anna-Maja was good when the floor was given (Appendix 3, B16.) This criticism was caused by different things, such as how journalists gave the floor to the candidates in debates, limited their time to speak, how the journalists approached different candidates with a different attitude, and what kind of candidate selection engines they had produced. The supporters were getting offended on behalf of their candidates, which shows how personal politics can get for the public. At the same time, however, they also gave the candidates positive visibility on Facebook. The criticism presented towards Yle supports the idea of the public sphere (see Habermas, 1989) being created by allowing public opinion formation and allowing multiple actors to participate in Facebook's discussion (see also Casero-Ripollés, 2018). 6.2.3! Sharing personal information Candidates’ private lives and personal characteristics were referenced in the data more by the public in their comments than by candidates in their posts. This indicates an interest in personas in social media, supporting Picard’s (2015) earlier findings. The sharing personal category was a significant category for strategic campaign communication because it also promoted positive engagement in the data. In this category, examples of content concerning the candidates’ personal lives such as family, history, health and feelings, were portrayed. Pictures or stories of the candidates’ spouses or other family members, and especially their dogs, sparked mainly positive commenting: 204 Acta Wasaensia Handsome couple." (Appendix 3, B22.) Equally cute, dog and master# (Appendix 3, B23.) These responses mostly focused on appearance. However, often either the family or couple was described as a whole, so the candidate was not necessarily the object of commenting on appearance. But when they were, this was part of the focus on personal characteristics seen in the frame of Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012), and negotiated the humane self. My analysis showed that the personal and intimate posts about family invited personal comments referring to appearance and feelings throughout the data. This promoted the candidates' brand as being more approachable, and as being an ordinary person with similar values, family, etc. to the electorate. The public also commented on the appearance of family members when they were mentioned in a post, which might have discouraged the candidates from posting too much about their close ones. The photos and descriptions of activities with the family dog drew engagement in the form of the public sharing their own dog stories and complimenting the candidate and/or their dog. These types of comments were easy for the public to make since they could still comment without making a political statement, thus revealing publicly whom they were supporting. Also, people connect with animals and easily engage with content such as dog photos online. Based on the amount of positive feedback for these posts seen in the data, it can be considered as a possible strategic choice for a campaign, indicating the type of personal life referred to by Railo (2011) that can be used to polish the public image. The decisions of party leaders to share their "letter to their younger selves" and other aspects of their personal life sparked more personal responses, where the public was commenting on the content shared in the letters. This showed that sharing personal life references and negotiating the personal self was valued by the public. In particular, they wanted to attach these more personal issues to the candidates' personas and brands. The comments were mostly positive and supportive of the candidates and their life work, but could sometimes comment on appearance or age: Inspiring engineer. He should keep on fixing Finland. Beard gets grey and wrinkles add on, but with grit you can manage!yz{|} (Appendix 3, B24.) This way of negotiating the personal self can benefit the candidate by bringing them closer to their public, making them more authentic (Enli, 2015b) and more ordinary. But as discussed earlier, there were also some attacks. These attacks were personal and harsh, and included language, tone and content which would not Acta Wasaensia 205 typically be used in face-to-face meetings, and it often seemed as if their writers had neglected the fact that they had their names and faces next to the comment that was made. This category in the data was coded as private and intimate content, and negotiated the candidate's humane politician self. Personal lives and characteristics were referenced in various ways, and these were individual for each candidate. The variety of representations even for one candidate throughout the data opposes van Dijck's (2013) view of the self as a "standardized tradable product". At least for the Finnish candidates, there was no standard seen in the data, unless the topic politician representation is seen as standard because of its frequent occurrence. This private and intimate content category was also different from the other categories because the comments were more tied to the original posts. Thus, my analysis supported that of Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 232, 240, 256), pointing out that private and intimate content provokes the electorate on social media. The persona of each candidate had some effect on parts of the content in the comments. The strongest examples of these were seen with candidates who had already been recognized personas before their political careers. These support the idea of the discursive power of celebrities argued by Marshall (1997). One was a former Olympic athlete, and raised several comments that were personal, both referring to sport, making references to their previous athletics career, and also to the candidate's religion which is part of the party brand they represent. For example, the public who wanted to wish the candidate success more often said things like "blessing" instead of "wish you well" or "all the best," which was more common with other candidates. The candidate was thanked for bringing up their faith, and the references to their professional career as an athlete were positive, and their past was often brought up in the data: The competition mode hit the spot, like in Stuttgart back in the day. On to the finish line and beyond!! !~€‚ƒ„…†‡ (Appendix 3, B25.) These private life references to the candidate’s past represent both the individualization and privatization perspectives of politics. There was a focus on this persona because of their recognized past, which negotiated the personal self by discussing the private life, the candidate’s past, and their personal characteristics. This way, the candidate’s persona and expertise were not only considered as having more knowledge about, for example, sports, but the personality is built from the professional sports persona and also the religious persona, which were both treated as lending more credibility and positive personality to the candidate’s political role. In this way, both humane and professional politician brand types were represented in the comments. 206 Acta Wasaensia Some candidates, typically those who were most well-known, raised conflicting impressions, where some loved their persona, and some hated it. These were also usually communicated in ways that negotiated the private lives or characteristics of the candidates: Master of bullshit (Appendix 3, B26.) Wow more of these! Straight honest talk without any bullshit. Thank you Hjallis, exemplary <3 (Appendix 3, B27.) However, these were usually the candidates who got the most exposure and had a more committed base of followers. These candidates also have multi-dimensional personas where they and the public negotiated the personal, professional, networked, listening, and informing politician. At the same time, less attention was given to the topic-orientated politician. This supports the idea Isotalus and Almonkari (2011) describe as ‘charmer politicians’. However, in my analysis, the representations seemed to fall more solidly into these intertwining brand types, hence my decision to distinguish more than two of them, unlike the earlier categories represented by Isotalus and Almonkari (2011). There were not many references to the candidates' professional roles in the data, except for their past political positions and decisions. This could be because most of the candidates in the data were professional politicians, meaning that their career has always been within politics. If they had a previous career, their possible success or expertise stemming from it was often featured in the comments: Juha Sipilä has shown how to achieve success also in his personal life. He has also been able to run things for Finland. He is empathetic, but not a fool. Money doesn’t grow on trees, someone must earn it. Earned money can be divided to people with wealth transfer. Using debt to make wealth transfer, which previous governments did will make children rejoice for a moment. But when the bill comes due, then people complain about the lack of empathy, when there just is nothing to share. X X, blame previous governments for those shake outs that the Sipilä government had to do, in order to save Finland from the cycle of debt. (Appendix 3, B28.) In these types of comments, the candidate’s personal life and characteristics were used to construct both the humane politician and their credibility and competence in their political role, thus promoting their professional politician brand type representation. These types of representations support Railo’s (2011) argument that personal content is always political. These personal life matters and characteristics are tied to the candidate’s political role and persona. Acta Wasaensia 207 One candidate got several references to their appearance, which portrayed typical Finnish female imagery: MMMFinnish Maiden MMM Powerful & Strong image (Appendix 3, B29.) These references to the candidate’s values and looks as having the traditional image of a Finnish girl with fair skin, long blond hair, and blue eyes were frequent in the comments to the candidate. This indicated that in this candidate’s case, appearance was a significant part of their personal brand. This type of appearance has traditionally been used to signify a Finnish woman and Finland as a whole. The analysis showed that it supported the patriotic values that the candidate and their party stood for. This way, the humane politician was tightly intertwined with the professional politician representation, and the private dimension with a focus on personal characteristics was highlighted (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). Also, the party brand was connected with the candidate through this personification of Finnish maiden imagery. In the case of female candidates, their appearance was generally more commented on. However, there were also some references to the looks and appearance of some male candidates. These were mainly references to charm and good looks, or offering styling recommendations: Oh Ben… You are the most charming man in politics! (Appendix 3, B30.) Change your look to a more young direction as you are young. SDP has enough old men. With all good intentions ! ! !ˆ‰0Š‹ŒŽ1‘’2“34 (Appendix 3, B31.) One comment referring to the sexual orientation of a candidate represented a rare example of intimate content in the data: You don’t seem to realize that if you take immigrants into your home, you would probably die within the first week because you are gay. But still you recommend it to people Pekka Haavisto. (Appendix 3, B32.) There were only a few comments like this in the data, which indicated that the topic was not relevant to the public and it was not considered a factor for constructing the personal brand. These might also have been moderated on the pages, yet no evidence of that exists, and other very harsh comments were left on the page, so there was no indication that this would have been the case. However, the number of blank results in data collection suggests that at least some moderation had been carried out among the pages. 208 Acta Wasaensia Comments on appearance and sexual orientation were part of the intimate negotiation, but there were many more complimenting the intelligence and stamina of candidates. This indicated that there was no special attention paid to the appearance, gender or sexual orientation of the candidates. Rather, the brand was constructed through attributes that build the professional self and the topic issues that the candidates communicated. This supports the earlier findings by Isotalus and Almonkari (2014), where politicians have stated in interviews that they prefer to keep their communication professional, and the data showed that the public mostly kept it that way as well. Thus, even though the public nature of their role blurs the lines of private and professional (see Street, 2004), the candidates could choose to remain on the professional side, and their audience mostly followed the chosen direction in relation to their comment content. However, there were exceptions. Specifically, with their criticism and attacks, the public became personal and negotiated content that did not necessarily follow the candidate’s line in dimensions of professional, private, and intimate. Most references to health in the data were expressions of concern for the candidate’s capabilities to take care of themselves with the busy schedule: Are you sure you are healthy enough for prime minister responsibilities. There is still a chance to step down without losing face (Appendix 3, B33.) Health issues were part of the intimate, so with these types of comments, the humane became intertwined with the professional politician brand type. The public also presented doubts on the candidate's ability to carry their role through, regardless of their health issues. These types of references in the comments lead me again to Railo's (2011) idea on personal content being political, and that instead, politics is personal; i.e. the public genuinely cared for their candidates and considered their health issues as something that is also their issue. But that genuine care could also be used as a weapon to attack the candidate and weaken them in the eyes of others. Those candidates who had brought their family to publicity received comments on their family or on their role as a parent. This also supports Mäkelä's (2018: 174– 178) findings on the success of female politicians in combining family and political careers. However, male candidates in the data also received similar commentary, so gender differences in content negotiating family or parenthood were not prominent. In these intimate examples, their family life was often combined with the professional role: Emma's mom to government young and capable (Appendix 3, B34.) Acta Wasaensia 209 In this way, the family and the personal role were negotiated as part of the candidate’s personal brand. It brought them closer to the public as ordinary and approachable when seen in this role, and not just through the topic issues or their current role as a politician. The comments also showed this approach, where the public commented on the page much in the same way they would comment on their friend’s profiles. 6.2.4! Socializing with the candidates Facebook has become an extension of real life for the public. The category of socio- emotional functions includes humor, gratitude, apologizing, and greetings. In this category, real-life encounters were brought to the comments with descriptions of the meetings and the candidates. The public used these comments as an opportunity to continue their interactions on from personal meetings with the candidates, to express their gratitude for a talk, to share selfies from their encounters, and to meet and interact with the candidates, even when the live meeting did not allow it: Thank you Ville Tavio for having the citizens interests at heart. ! ! !F”•GH–I—˜™š›œžŸ  I would have come to shake your hand as a thank you for all the great work in the parliamentary session yesterday but you were occupied at all times. (Appendix 3, B35.) Social media allows the public to address the candidate directly. These addresses were positive in the data when they referred to meetings with the candidates or expressed the need for discussion, which indicated that these types of sociable comments were likely to come from supporters or at least from individuals who shared similar views. These people wanted to share their encounters, and they usually also commented, for example, on the looks or the likability of candidates they felt when meeting them live. By sharing their encounters, they portrayed the authenticity (Enli, 2015b) aspect of the candidate and also promoted the humane politician brand type. The importance of the candidate's approach to people and their availability was communicated in the data. The comments expressed how important it was that they met the candidates in real life: The best part about Ben is that even after campaigning he is reachable in the marketplace and different gatherings, answers questions from the citizens, and listens to their views about matters. Everything he does he does well !"#$!BCDE (Appendix 3, B36.) 210 Acta Wasaensia This comment highlighted the importance of the listening self and the networked self. The electorate wants their candidate to be approachable and accessible, and not just personal by knowing intimate details about them, but personal by having direct access. My analysis showed that the public needed to meet the candidates in person, which supports what Railo and Ruohonen (2016: 289–293) noted in their candidate interviews about personal meetings being the most prominent campaign tool. The candidates were criticized if they neglected some locations on their campaign trail. However, the comments also showed that personal replies and interaction could replace or at least be comparable to these personal meetings: Hi! I am a new voter for you and I hope for personal messages on whether it was worth voting for you.... (Appendix 3, B37.) The presence of several of these comments in the data implied that this form of interaction is needed, and that there was also a need to participate in the discussions on Facebook. Thus, a need was expressed for the listening politician brand type. When candidates had been met in person, these encounters could be re-lived and extended online: A wild Pirkanmaa round! Thank you for coming. I have to say that earlier when I had only had the media-made impression, it was great to see how genuine and down to earth you are for real. You had the energy to meet all of us in person, that was great. (Appendix 3, B38.) The public used Facebook to address the candidates directly and called for interaction. These comments show the importance of personas and the need for interaction with them (see also Isotalus & Almonkari, 2011; 2014). Especially, the connection and focus are placed on individuals and their personas, and not on the political parties. Even though the subcategory of greetings did not give a lot in terms of strategic communication planning or constructing personal branding, the amount of this type of content in the comments was so considerable that it needs to be addressed. The comments were simple "hello" and "thank you" notes for either previous government or parliament work, or the candidate's current campaign. Sometimes a more personal appreciation was added in the comment. However, it is essential to consider how these affect the exposure of candidates' posts through the engagement and the functions of the algorithm. While the public did not necessarily have a lot to comment on for the candidate, they still wanted to engage with their post. A need to be sociable with them could be the reason for this (see also Papacharissi, 2013; Schroeder, 2016). However, my data shows no proof for Strandberg and Borg's (2020: 107) assessment of Facebook as a useful forum for Acta Wasaensia 211 political influence for constituents seeking a social connection. Rather, this connection was lacking in my data, and there were no replies from the candidates, and interaction between the members of the public in the comments was also rare. However, the public still showed that they were seeking these connections, supporting the idea that Facebook was used for this purpose. The comments in this category also included most of the emojis seen in the data. These were used, for example, for expressing gratitude with a flower or hello with a smiling emoji, indicating the need for connection with the candidates, even if only by way of a one-click note (see Stark & Crawford, 2015). These comments included greetings for candidates, either adding promises of a vote or some expression about not having voted for them but still wanting to say good luck or to thank them for their work: Even if I didn’t vote for you this time, I wish you all the best. You are a humane and fine politician! As a dance teacher I can say something about flexing. But extreme movements are not required as a point of physical wellbeing. (Appendix 3, B39.) The importance that the public placed on the humanity of politicians supported McGregor’s (2017) idea that humane representations in political communication are more appealing to the public. My analysis highlighted the significance of the past in their brand construction, particularly that the public remembers decisions that have been taken and the results, and that they considered them during this active discussion period during the campaign, and especially in relation to voting. The professional self was constantly shaped by the activities of the politicians in their current role, and this was in line with Larsson (2015), arguing that campaign communication should also be assessed in longitudinal studies outside active campaign periods. My analysis indicated that the socio-emotional functions in content was relevant because of the significance of engagement on Facebook. These were also used for socializing on Facebook. Social media is used for sociability, and its affordances affect how this sociability is shaped (Schroeder, 2016). In Facebook, this means that comments are used similarly to the types of interactions that could take place in face-to-face encounters in campaign events. However, the attacks seen in the posts in this category were divergent from those interactions. My analysis also showed what Schroeder (2016) depicts as the episodic nature of these comments, meaning that the public chose which posts to comment on or otherwise engage with. This was not incidental, even though the visibility of a particular post can perhaps seem random even if defined by the algorithm. Nevertheless, for the public, the comments and the engagement were a chance to approach the 212 Acta Wasaensia candidates and to interact with them. Simultaneously, evaluating this engagement could show candidates their popularity and connection with the public. My analysis showed that the public used cases, examples, and statements made by either the candidates themselves or other politicians to show criticism, and also use irony in their insults. This aligns with Laaksonen and Pöyry’s (2018) findings that humor and sarcasm are the main ways used to approach different topics online. Especially, the comments on the Finns Party candidates’ pages often included sarcasm, irony, or even jokes: What did Rinne say when he looked at the polling numbers with Sipilä and Orpo? “It seems we have the same direction” (Appendix 3, B40.) The joke on the comment was made using the Social Democratic Party slogan and indicating that the Finns Party was now replacing the three bigger parties. Finns Party supporters often built their comments around negative perspectives of the three large parties. Notably, they focused on the politicians leading those parties, which indicated an exploitation of the concentrated visibility aspect seen in the data (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). This indicated that the public had adopted a similar approach to that employed in traditional media, where issues and parties are discussed through their leading politicians. 6.2.5! Praising and expressing support This category included expressions of support for candidates, political or non- political actors, and also for oneself. My results show that this category mostly included support shown to the candidates. Often this was expressed in the form of promises to vote, but also the comments gave support to candidates who had gained respect but not necessarily the vote from the public: U have my support !¡¢£¤. (Appendix 3, B41.) If this would be only a persona election I would vote for Sari Essayah, but it isn’t! (Appendix 3, B42.) Same direction here in Jyväskylä <3. (Appendix 3, B43.) The social democratic party had managed to get their message through with their slogan "we have the same direction", which was often referenced in the data. These types of supportive comments did not construct any specific type of the politician's brand; however, they strengthened the positive and created an impression of solid support when there were many similar comments. Acta Wasaensia 213 One user commented their appreciation for one candidate's way of mentioning all the candidates and their numbers when posting a call to vote. This showed the audience's appreciation for the networking politician; candidates who presented their persona together with other candidates, instead of just boosting themselves as individual candidates. This presentation of unselfish thinking also contributed to the candidate's personal characteristics, thus negotiating the humane politician. However, the supportive comments sometimes expressed negativity to other candidates: If Marin would be running the party instead of Rinne, there wouldn’t be any question of the winner in the elections, now it will be a tight race!?@A. (Appendix 3, B44.) These comments resulted from one candidate substituting for a party leader who was on sick leave. This started a discussion on replacing the party leader. In this discussion, the concentrated visibility, and the importance of the political leader noted earlier by Karvonen (2009: 100–101) and von Schoultz (2016: 166) was emphasized, which also features prominently in the data and was discussed in the category of attacks. My analysis showed several references to the persona vs. party dilemma in the parliamentary elections, which also revealed the public's problem with the voting districts. These findings depict the importance of personal brand and how much it meant to the candidates and the public, and as Garzia (2014: 80–85) has pointed out, some voters can even switch from one party to another because of an individual candidate. Therefore, personas matter, and the electorate take their selection personally. It also needs to be remembered that several voters in Finland do not vote along party lines, but purely concentrate on voting for individual candidates (see von Schoultz, 2016: 169–173): For the first time in my life I voted for the National Coalition party 4 years ago. I voted for Elina, because her matter-of-fact argumentation and clear vision convinced me. Now I am even more convinced, and my vote goes to Elina. I am not that convinced by the National Coalition party, but none of the parties are perfectly good and wonderful. (Appendix 3, B45.) These types of comments highlighted the aspect of general visibility, and the professional, networked and humane politician brand type representations. Here, the focus was on individual politicians as described in the general visibility dimension (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). The individual's party, part of the 214 Acta Wasaensia networked self, was either regarded or disregarded depending on the voter, and the candidates' personal characteristics and competence were valued. My analysis supports the results of von Schoultz, Järvi and Mattila (2020: 176– 178) that candidate Essayah is personally more popular than her. Particularly, the candidate received positive commentary especially when private dimension elements such as non-professional characteristics, their past role as an athlete, and professional characteristics like rhetorical skills, were assessed. The division between supporting the party in relation to the candidate was more equal in the comments than in the posts. While the posts were mainly focused on the candidates and individual personas, there was a more equal focus on both the parties and candidates in the comments. This is natural since social media is focused on individuals, and the posts were only analyzed for the candidate's public pages. However, it is noteworthy that the public's discussion did not follow this but included the parties to the discussion. The importance of the party leader and the concentrated visibility dimension addressed by Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer (2012) came across in several comments, supporting von Schoultz's (2016: 190) conclusions about the party leader's persona significance. The public viewed the position as essential, and through the data, the biggest compliment was to state that someone either is or would make a great party leader and then prime minister. This supported and extended Niemi's (2016) views that the focus on the idea of prime minister election turns the focus to party leaders when the public makes their voting decisions. However, they were also suggesting a great future as a party leader for younger candidates: Smart, intelligent and pleasant acting Man. Fit for the head of the National Coalition party. Future prime minister and president potential. (Appendix 3, B47.) My analysis showed that in these comments, the privatization dimension was also referred to, and the candidates’ personal characteristics, behavior and intelligence were assessed (see Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012). These constructed the humane and the professional politician brand types by explaining why the candidate was fit for the role, and their professional self gained credibility. The choice to include vote-pullers and party leaders in the data ensured that each current parliamentary party is represented in the data, even though Jussi Halla- aho as a vote-puller for the Finns Party was excluded from the study because of the Acta Wasaensia 215 lack of a public page on Facebook. Nevertheless, that particular candidate was referred to in the data even more than other candidates: On Sunday JUSSI ! ¥]^_ MMM (Appendix 3, B48.) Especially, the other Finns Party candidates and their pages were used as a forum to express support for the party leader in the comments. The solid supporter base discussed his debate performance, his "superiority", and expressed support for him as the next prime minister throughout the data, in the comments of almost all of the candidates' pages. In this way, the data indicated a substantial exploitation of the concept of concentrated visibility (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012) by the public. These types of comments were also prominent in the posts of candidates Huhtasaari and Peltokangas. However, the Finns Party supporters communicating support for their party's agenda and candidates often simultaneously expressed rejection and criticism towards other parties and candidates. It was remarkable how much this one party's candidates were also referred to in the comments for other parties' candidates. My analysis shows that their supporters were exploiting the candidate's concentrated visibility, and this mobilization gave added exposure. Similar reasons were assessed as being key factors in the party rising in the parliamentary elections of 2011 among the bigger parties (Niemi, 2014), which usually benefit from more extensive resources in campaign communication (Strandberg, 2016). A similar type of commenting also featured in the category where performance and rhetoric were assessed. Movement Now's supporters also utilized the concentrated visibility. For example, this comment was found in the major party leaders' pages: I was just listening to Hjallis Harkimo and Karoliina Kähönen from Movement Now. I have never before been more satisfied with my vote, and I made the right decision. It is great to be in the front group breaking Finnish corrupted democracy. (Appendix 3, B49.) Some less recognized candidates exploited the individualization dimension and the concentrated visibility of some candidates by promoting themselves and their number on more known candidates’ comments. By recognizing those candidates who had visibility, these less recognized candidates could benefit by commenting their own message for the larger audiences on these candidates’ pages. However, these messages were not commented on or noticed by the other participants, at least in the comments. 216 Acta Wasaensia Party-related expressions and phrases were used outside party lines, thereby disturbing the brands by disconnecting their key messages when they were attached to another candidate. Some slogans were also stolen from other parties. The following example includes a phrase introduced by Timo Soini with The Finns Party in the elections of 2011: Great Antti. Big election victory coming up. So that it will jytkähtää [jytkähtää is a metaphor used in reference to “a big bomb” and also a reference to a slogan used by the previous Finns Party success in election of 2012]!! (Appendix 3, B50.) This type of intertextuality is typical for social media comments, and references to other media texts and narratives were often made again supporting the hybrid media environment idea by Chadwick (2013). In the data, there were several comments made to all the candidates, where there was an only a single-word statement: voted. (Appendix 3, B51.) One-word voting statements could not be interpreted as to whether they expressed support for the candidate. However, the tone and the specific that they were addressed to one particular candidate’s page indicated that the vote would most likely be directed to the candidate in question. Also, it is interesting to ask why the public posted these types of comments. Was it to prompt others to vote? Or could there be some sense of the act of voting becoming more true once it was validated with a comment on social media, as has been discussed in relation to other life events (see Östman, 2015)? Regardless, these types of comments implied a need for interaction with the candidates and again highlighted the importance of the listening politician brand type. They also supported the sociability aspect of Facebook depicted by Schroeder (2016). Some expressions of support complimented the persona of the candidate, and did not mention voting: Such a king he is !"#$ (Appendix 3, B46.) These types of comments show that for some among the public, the persona comes first instead of the party. However, no assessment of the person’s abilities was given, and the candidate was simply crowned. Thus, the humane politician brand type was negotiated more than anything else with those candidates who had a strong, distinguished brand and previous recognition, especially if they were Acta Wasaensia 217 celebrity politicians who were known because of their previous career (see Street, 2004). A positive orientation towards the candidate was more visible towards the end of the data, in the period just before the election day, while the first part of the collected data showed more criticism and questioning. This could suggest that the members of the public took time, in the beginning, to criticize and question, so constructing a negative brand against candidates they wished to oppose. But towards the end of the campaign, it was mainly supporters who were reacting with the pages. Also, the lack of interaction on the page might have silenced the opposing voices, and if there was no reaction and counter-argument, the comments were left without notice. 6.2.6! Sign and share this initiative The public were not sharing their own content in the comments. However, some shared citizen initiatives: How about it - would animal protection also go there in addition to protection of the environment? [link to the initiative] (Appendix 3, B52.) In this way, the citizens utilized general and concentrated visibility for their cause by trying to gain exposure for the initiative. However, these discussions were not continued in the comments, and my analysis shows that these issues were left with little notice on the page. This also supports the focus on personas seen on the pages, depicted for social media by Picard (2015). 6.2.7! Nice job on the debate The most prominent and most visible comment category in the data evaluated performance, where appearances on election debates or in other media were discussed. Railo et al. (2016: 331) remind us that communicating through social media in relation to the media performances of politicians adds to the public interest towards politics and increases political knowledge. The references in the evaluations mostly included personal characteristics, thus presenting the private dimension of Van Aelst, Sheafer and Stanyer’s (2012) operationalization on personalization. In this category, the comments concerned the candidates and their evaluation, based on television debates, speeches, and their rhetoric in general. This was the major category seen in the data, and it produced the most extended comments. 218 Acta Wasaensia One natural lead to this was that the candidates mostly posted about their appearances at a particular location or in the media, thus presenting the informing politician brand type. There were responses to the posts, and it seemed that the public needed to comment on their appearance. Particularly, Facebook provided an outlet for doing what earlier only journalists could do: namely to publicly assess and evaluate the candidates. The comments regarding the debates and speeches only touched on the content by either thanking the candidate for focusing on a particular issue or praising their rhetorical skills and how their speech was written. Otherwise, they commented on the candidate’s looks, their way of speaking, or their behavior. Some comments included an argument for or against something that the candidate had said. As stated before, these types of comments rarely negotiated looks, and their focus was merely on the argumentation skills, articulation, and behavior towards the other candidates. The comments in the data on particular debates were so contradictory between the candidates’ pages that it seemed that they may have been referring to different debates, since their perceptions and feelings diverged so much from each other. This suggests that the feel for the candidate was mainly born through previous experiences and perceptions, and that current perceptions were formed based on what was already known and felt about the candidate: Good thinking from Haavisto, but credibility is eroded with the Caruna deal. (Appendix 3, B53.) In this example, the idea of issue ownership (Petrocik, 1996) showed that the candidate's political past was tightly attached to them. Here, the politician's brand was bound with a single topic that had raised much public criticism. One topic issue can diminish the candidate's credibility and is hard to fix, so the importance placed on the past with politicians' personal brands seen in the data further support's Larsson's (2015) argument for longitudinal studies on election campaigns. The first type of these comments included general statements about how the debate or performance went. These were either positive, such as "good debate", or negative, like "that was not very impressive", where there was no specific evaluation or justification for the comment. These could express support or rejection towards the candidate, but they were not negotiating anything relating to the candidates' personas. But they also showed the importance of the performance in debates: Wow, you have done well in the grilling. I respect that a lot!! (Appendix 3, B54.) Acta Wasaensia 219 In the data, the public broadly used comments to assess and evaluate the candidate’s rhetorical skills and performance in debates. This is part of the privatization dimension, specifically with the detailed focus on personal characteristics (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012), because here, the candidate’s personal skills and performance are negotiated. This was a combined negotiation of the professional, humane, and listening politician brand types, specifically when some candidates were judged not to listen to the other candidate’s turn on the floor or to ignore the topic in question. My analysis showed a discrepancy between the candidate’s communication focus and what the public wanted to comment on. Regardless of the candidate’s focus on topic issues in their posts, several comments focused on their appearance: Wow you are a super package. Super beautiful, sensible, good verbal skills, humane, sensible and clear opinions. You are the best! (Appendix 3, B55.) Based on my data, candidates’ rhetorical skills, credibility, and humane approach were essential for their brand construction. The occasional mentions of the candidate’s appearance were often seen as positive comments, even humorous, that were negotiating more the candidate’s personality than their fit or looks. Even though they were part of the personal self and private dimension, they were used to strengthen the professional politician brand type, thus constructing the candidate’s brand as a successful and credible expert. Even though Facebook is used to present photos and social media has been regarded as being focused on the visual and appearance, there were almost no comments concerning the candidates’ styles or outfits. However, the personal characteristics that were raised constructed the candidate’s personal brand in several ways; they set the tone, connected with the public, engaged in commenting, presented authenticity (Enli, 2015b), and promoted sticky affective networks (Papacharissi, 2015). My data indicated that speeches could make a difference for some, and the public valued rhetoric skills: I cannot say anything else than abilities can be heard and seen: knowledge about matters, the pleasantness of public performance, facial expressions, gestures, sharpness when needed, humor, articulation, narrative of the generation, respect. Signed: first time ever Center party because of Sipilä (Appendix 3, B56.) Only Sari Essayah and Halla-aho have common courtesy skills like a normal person. Others act like a herd of brainless idiots. Heaven forbid how I am ashamed of the childish behavior of those others. (Appendix 3, B57.) 220 Acta Wasaensia It was great to listen to a knowledgeable and wholesome speech. Even the reporters were a bit taken back. Determination and integrity are great qualities. Thank you. (Appendix 3, B58.) These examples show that for some, individual performances on debates mattered, and the candidates could affect a lot with how they managed these situations. Here, the public emphasized both the humane and the professional politician brand types because the private dimension was in focus (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer, 2012) and building the credibility of the professional self. It was important for the public that the candidates had rhetorical skills to explain issues at their level, and this was often noted in the data. The above examples also indicate that the public respected candidates who could be seen as ordinary people. Especially, their behavior towards others in debates was highlighted and thus became part of the candidate's brand. Humanity was valued in the brand representations, and personal characteristic references considering the candidate's rhetorical skills and credibility were directed to almost all of the candidates in the data. Some comments evaluated the candidate positively, even stating that the evaluation came from the supporter of another party. This further indicated that the page audience was more extensive than just the candidate's page follower base: Even though I am a green party voter, I must say that in this debate Sanna Marin shone. You are unbelievably sharp and on point. I hope your party is wise enough to make you the party leader. (Appendix 3, B59.) Intelligence was often mentioned together with rhetorical skills and performance evaluation. My analysis also showed that the public were also giving instructions when evaluating the candidates. In this way, the public’s adoption of the media watchdog position suggested by Rudd (2016: 164–165) was also supported by comments that evaluated the candidates’ performances. With the performance evaluation posts, my analysis showed that the public were co-living the debates and then looking for a parallel platform from Facebook to interact directly with the candidate, and even advise them on what and how they should conduct these performances. This indicated that Facebook was also used for dual screening, and can be compared to earlier findings on Twitter (see Shah et al., 2016; Vaccari, Chadwick & O’Loughlin, 2015). The data also included criticism for performance: Hi, here is a Lapland democrat. You have ruined the election for the democrats with your ego and confusing speech skills!! This will happen and it pisses us Lapland democrats off a lot! We here in Lapland want you away Acta Wasaensia 221 from the role of the head of the party, we want a younger leader. For example Sanna Marin, Antti Lindman or Urpilainen would be better. Antti, if Sanna Marin would have lead this election campaign, the Social Democratic Party would definitely have been the biggest party on 14.4.2019. Antti, you should relinquish the leadership position and give a chance to the younger and braver ones to lead the Social Democratic Party to new ventures. This is the true message to you from the Lapland region! (Appendix 3, B60.) Here the candidate's rhetorical skills were attacked, so both their professional and humane politician representations were criticized. In the example, the candidate's role as a politician was discussed, but also their personality and personal charisma. This example also supports von Schoultz's (2016: 172) argument that an unpopular party leader can reduce support for the party among voters because the comment implied that there would be more voters if the party leader would be changed. The concentrated visibility was also evident here. The comment indicated that people felt the party leader was solely responsible for the party's support. If the party was not leading in the polls or getting the majority of the votes, then the leader should be changed to boost the party's popularity. Here, even the candidate’s age (a private dimension issue) was referred to as an explanation for the need to switch leaders. Another personal characteristic, bravery, was also mentioned, and this type of thinking was evident throughout the data, with many comments expressing that persona was essential for representing and promoting the party. 6.3! Engagement with Candidates The networking and the professional politician brands engaged with the public through the party brand and topic messages. Especially for the party leaders, the party slogans and references that they used in debates showed as engagement in the data because the public also used them in the comments. These slogans were also spread in the comments where they were connected with the messages, thus showing the public's engagement. Overall, this indicated that these types of short phrases that connect either to the party or the politician get visibility and mobilize supporters when they are well planned and engaging. For example, short and clever messages together with a message that the public shared promoted engagement. The candidates were using the facilitation aspect of Facebook, primarily through the way it allowed them to direct topic messages and campaign trail updates. Some of them also used the platform to share other media content, thus adding the 222 Acta Wasaensia exposure of their appearances. The public were able to use the platform to participate in debates, express agreement, comment on candidates' television appearances and other media coverage, express their own opinions, and share information. Also, they encouraged others to vote and participate in campaign events. As a negative point, some used Facebook to spread content that was harmful to the candidates they opposed and issues that they felt strongly about, which were otherwise not getting media exposure. Mainstream media content is usually considered less authentic than user- generated content, and this idea of symbolic authenticity (Enli, 2015a) builds the power and influence of the posts and comments in the data. Mostly they were and seemed genuine, with spelling mistakes, non-polished ideas, and a spoken Finnish style of writing which, especially in the case of user-written comments, makes them a powerful form of word of mouth marketing. Based on the data, discussions between the candidates and the public on Facebook during the campaign were seen to be lacking the interactive dynamic. Some interaction occurred among the public, but again remained limited. Some candidates succeeded in creating a follower base through active posting where support and loyalty to them were expressed. But while the posts were getting exposure through engagement, no content went viral or was created to translate into more comprehensive media coverage, even though broadcast media coverage was shared on Facebook and used as content. The candidates also failed in creating transparency because the scope of topics and the discussion style were limited. The networked politician's importance was most robust with those tightly connected to their party and party brand, and among the public, that shapes their voting decision by considering the party first. A significant part of the support messages in the comments were support messages for the party instead of the person, so the exact opposite of individualization. However, this was also one type of persona representation of party leaders, where they were viewed ‘as the party’ and communication to the party was directed to them. The comments represented both supporters and those who were firmly against. This highlighted the significance of the exposure that posts get through engagement. Also, those candidates provoking strong opposition were more likely to have their opposing public visit their pages and comment there because of their brand, where name recognition is central. As stated in previous research, such as Enli's (2015b) work on authenticity online, authenticity – or at least an illusion of authenticity – promoted engagement. This was supported by the data and analysis, where personal, more spontaneous posts were responded to with more reactions and more positive comments. While many Acta Wasaensia 223 candidates provided campaign-trail photos and real-time reporting on events, only those who described feelings and discussed issues instead of just listing campaign locations promoted a response from the public. The emotional posts that candidates used towards the end of the campaign and especially on the last campaign day were essential to engage the followers and create personalized content. However, my analysis also showed the importance of the individual candidates, instead of only what they produce in the posts, thus emphasizing the importance of personal brands. Furthermore, the data showed that private and intimate content was not the only type of content provoking engagement. But regardless of the lack of personal content in the candidates' posts, they provoked significant engagement from the public. For some candidates, even lengthy topic posts arguing policy issues received reactions and comments where individual stories and opinions were shared in addition to expressions of support or opposition. Table 15 represents the total number of reactions, and also the number of different reactions for likes, love, wow, laugh, sad and angry, seen for each candidate. The last row presents the total sums of these reactions so that they can be compared for individual candidates. As expected, and as Table 15 shows, some reactions to posts were used more than others. Similar to Kalsnes, Larsson and Enli’s (2017) study on Norwegian candidate-citizen interaction on Facebook, the like reaction is the most used in communication. For the other reactions, the sad face and the amazement were used less than reactions expressing love ( <3), like, laughter or anger. However, it is remarkable how prominent the love reaction was in the data, implying the users' personal connection with the candidates. The number of love reactions varied from 69 for Tavio, up to 3 556 for Andersson. Furthermore, manual analysis shows what type of posts provoked these reactions. Likes were the dominating expression in engaging with political posts online in Finland, and it is the first and easiest reaction. For example, those unfamiliar with Facebook and other social media only use the like-reaction. This was supported by the number of different reactions used on the page of Zyskowicz, a senior politician in the data, and the number of reactions on the pages of Huhtasaari and Andersson who represent a younger generation of politicians. The followers and those commenting on their pages probably represented different demographics in their social media use and age. The number of likes ranged from 2 227 (Tavio) and 57 559 (Andersson), and these represented a significant portion of the total engagement. As Table 15 shows, there were different types of reactions attached to the politicians' posts in the Finnish parliamentary election campaign. This indicated that the public were using the platform's affordances when communicating there, and they were engaging with the posts in various ways. It also indicated that 224 Acta Wasaensia campaign communication was viewed as important on Facebook by the public, and they followed the posts and reacted to them in similar ways to other discussions online. It needs to be remembered that some liked the posts because they want to follow the discussion in the comment thread and this was also mentioned in the comments. Table 15. Reactions for candidates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he number of posts, comments, shares, and reactions for each candidate is presented in Table 16. This gives an overview of each candidate and their engagement on Facebook during the analysis period. These numbers were counted automatically in Facepager in the process of data collection. Votes were collected from the official vote count of Finnish elections. Based on reactions, Essayah is an interesting example with almost no negative reactions and a prominent positive reaction count. This supports the candidate's character and the brand that her assistant also communicated when I inquired about the content production, namely, the candidate represents the type that does not really get criticism or raise strong opposition or negative feelings. Significantly the candidate's television appearances promoted positive commentary over party Acta Wasaensia 225 lines, and these show in the number of positive reactions, for example, 9,036 likes with 94 posts. Table 16. Total engagement for each candidate )"*&+( !"#$%$"&'( ).1&1( !.//'#&1( RQ"*'1( G'"-&%.#1( S.&"7( '#>">'/'#&( 12(&@(6*&=$$"-)A(& =)>(+??0)&& UQW& SCVUZ& PCNSS& VPCZUW& LTBJJJ( 12(&'2+"?*"-)& B(70A+-*?& I??-.-2& QR& RVS& RRR& QCMRZ& E*7-)& PP& VNZ& VRZ& URCZUZ& ELB<