The presidential elections as an online political event. Political actors and their Facebook strategies during the 2012 French Presidential election. ; Les élections présidentielles : un événement politique en ligne. Les acteurs politiques et leur performance sur Facebook lors des élections présidentielles françaises de 2012

Open Access

Abstract

International audience ; The paper focuses on a social media as a platform to facilitate political event during the French Presidential election 2012. Facebook profiles of presidential candidates are studied during the most intense 50 days before the election. The results confirms social media as possible platform for creating the political event, however with its specificity: control over the message and its dissemination by the political actor. However, in that specific context social media do not serve as an interactive tool to engage the audience, but rather as information platform facilitating horizontal interactivity. We find the emotion of the posts, its character (status) and personalization of narration as important factors influencing attractiveness of the event among the audience performing different activities on profiles. Résumé Cet article explore dans quelle mesure médias sociaux jouent le rôle d'une plateforme facilitatrice