Political Party Engagement on Social Media: Trends, Challenges, and Dynamics of Digital Campaigns

Abstract

Over the past ten years, social media has become a hub of digital campaigning by political parties, affecting the electoral policy and interaction with the population on the global scale. The purpose of the study is to map the intellectual terrain of the global research on political party engagement using social media between 2015 and 2025. Based on a bibliometric methodology developed in PRISMA guidelines and the data published through the Scopus database, the present study examines 554 identified articles through VOSviewer to represent the co-authorship, co-keywords, and country-collaboration networks. The results demonstrate that there are five key thematic groups, such as campaign strategies, disinformation, polarization, methodological approaches and country-specific case studies. Findings indicate that Facebook and Twitter are leading in the use of platforms, and new platforms such as Tik Tok and WhatsApp are becoming more and more influential in the Global South. The United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain become leading contributors, which represents epistemic centrality in digital political studies. Nevertheless, voices and case studies of the Southeast Asian region, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America are still underrepresented. The work will add to the digital democracy discussion by providing critical information on gaps in research, trends in collaboration across the world, and the dynamic character of the political campaigns in the digital world, thereby creating the way to more inclusive and interdisciplinary research in the future.

Selama satu dekade terakhir, media sosial telah menjadi pusat kampanye digital bagi partai politik, yang memengaruhi kebijakan elektoral serta interaksi dengan masyarakat dalam skala global. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memetakan lanskap intelektual riset global mengenai keterlibatan partai politik di media sosial antara tahun 2015 dan 2025. Dengan menggunakan metodologi bibliometrik yang mengacu pada pedoman PRISMA dan data dari basis data Scopus, studi ini menganalisis 554 artikel menggunakan perangkat lunak VOSviewer untuk memetakan jaringan kepenulisan bersama (co-authorship), kata kunci bersama (co-keywords), dan kolaborasi antarnegara. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan adanya lima kelompok tematik utama, yaitu strategi kampanye, disinformasi, polarisasi, pendekatan metodologis, dan studi kasus spesifik negara. Temuan menunjukkan bahwa Facebook dan Twitter mendominasi penggunaan platform, sementara platform baru seperti TikTok dan WhatsApp semakin berpengaruh di wilayah Global Selatan. Amerika Serikat, Inggris, Jerman, dan Spanyol menjadi kontributor utama, yang mencerminkan sentralitas epistemik dalam studi politik digital. Kendati demikian, perspektif dan studi kasus dari kawasan Asia Tenggara, Afrika Sub-Sahara, dan Amerika Latin masih kurang terwakili. Studi ini berkontribusi pada diskursus demokrasi digital dengan menyajikan informasi penting mengenai kesenjangan penelitian, tren kolaborasi global, serta dinamika kampanye politik di dunia digital, sehingga membuka jalan bagi penelitian yang lebih inklusif dan bersifat lintas disiplin di masa depan.