European Parliament Elections

#162: Negative Campaigning on Facebook in EU Elections, Cross-Platform Extremism, and Dissonant Public Spheres, with Prof. Ulrike Klinger

July 1, 2023 Academics

Prof. Ulrike Klinger, Professor for Digital Democracy at the European New School for Digital Studies at European University Viadrina, shares her latest research on negative campaigning on social media. We discuss some of the challenges in studying digital communication in the EU, as well as what explains a rise in negative campaigning across two European Parliament elections. Prof. Klinger also shares her research on the UN Global Compact for Migration, where extremist ideas from the Identitarian movement were picked up by the mainstream media. Lastly, we discuss Prof. Klinger’s suggestions for increasing researcher data access ahead of the Digital Services Act.


Here are links to the studies discussed in the episode: 

  1.  Are Campaigns Getting Uglier, and Who Is to Blame? Negativity, Dramatization and Populism on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns (2023)

  2. From the fringes into mainstream politics: intermediary networks and movement-party coordination of a global anti-immigration campaign in Germany (2022)

  3. Delegated Regulation on Data Access Provided for the Digital Services Act (2023)

  4. Political Communication Special Issue: Digital Campaigning in Dissonant Public Spheres (2023)

#146: Social Media Influencers and Politics, Environmental Behavior, and Covid Misinformation, with Dr. Desirée Schmuck

June 19, 2022 Academics

Dr. Desirée Schmuck, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mass Communication at KU Leuven, shares her research on social media influencers and their effects on users’ political attitudes and behavior. We break down three of Dr. Schmuck’s studies. The first focuses on how exposure to political influencer content affects young social media users’ behavior, both in terms of formal electoral participation and environmental sustainability. The second examines how influencers might affect users’ perceived simplification of politics, and how that perception influences users’ political cynicism and interest. The third study is an experiment that seeks to understand how misinformation from lifestyle influencers could affect female social media users’ attitudes toward Covid and trust in public health information.


Here are links to the studies we discuss in the episode:


The Mobilizing Power of Influencers for Pro-Environmental Behavior Intentions and Political Participation (2022)

Politics–Simply Explained? How Influencers Affect Youth’s Perceived Simplification of Politics, Political Cynicism, and Political Interest (2022)

Responses to Social Media Influencers’ Misinformation about COVID-19: A Pre-Registered Multiple-Exposure Experiment (2022)

#98: Political Mobilization in the 2019 EU Election Campaign, with Stephen Clark

January 11, 2020 Digital Strategists

Stephen Clark,
Director for Liaison Offices at the European Parliament, guests to
discuss his role coordinating the Parliament’s election campaign in the
2019 European Elections. We discuss the Parliament’s social media
strategy, its focus on mobilizing citizens through the “ground game,”
and the reaction to the Parliament’s campaign video “Choose your Future.”

Listen to the Steve discuss the Parliament’s strategy before the elections on the EuroPCom podcast!

#81: European Parliament Elections 2019: Results and Breakdown, with Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten

May 29, 2019 Academics


Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Assistant Professor of European Studies at Lund University, guests to discuss a live breakdown of the 2019 EU election.

We talk about the election results, the European Parliament’s digital campaign, and what it all means for Europe.


Here’s the 2019 European Parliament’s promo video: Choose your Future.


And the 2014 video: Act. React. Impact.

#68: Private and Public Sector Digital Campaigning in the EU, with Marta Albertini

January 13, 2019 Digital Strategists

Marta Albertini, Digital Strategist at GPLUS, joins the podcast to share her experiences in digital campaigning across private and public sectors. We discuss differences in using social media in a B2B environment versus an institutional one, some of the challenges in running pan-European campaigns, and how generational differences matter when communicating policy online. Marta also shares her insights on what’s changed in the (social) media landscape between the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament Elections.

#66: Crisis Communication, Social Media, and European Political Campaigning, with Marco Ricorda

December 16, 2018 Digital Strategists

Marco Ricorda, Social Media Manager for the European Parliament’s President, joins the podcast to discuss livestreaming from the Parliament during last week’s terrorist attack in Strasbourg. From there, we discuss the state of digital campaigning in European politics, the role of data and data analysis for social media campaigns, and the upcoming 2019 European Parliament elections.

Check out the EuroPCom Podcast!
Here’s Marco’s Medium post discussed in the episode.