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The Journal of Legislative Studies
ISSN: 1357-2334 (Print) 1743-9337 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjls20
A Facebook post is born: exploring the process of
generating MPs’ social media presence
Azi Lev-On, Chen Sabag-Ben Porat & Sam Lehman-Wilzig
To cite this article: Azi Lev-On, Chen Sabag-Ben Porat & Sam Lehman-Wilzig (2017) A Facebook
post is born: exploring the process of generating MPs’ social media presence, The Journal of
Legislative Studies, 23:4, 549-565, DOI: 10.1080/13572334.2017.1394738
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2017.1394738
Published online: 10 Nov 2017.
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A Facebook post is born: exploring the process of
generating MPs’social media presence
Azi Lev-On
a
, Chen Sabag-Ben Porat
b
and Sam Lehman-Wilzig
b
a
School of Communication, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel;
b
School of Communication, Bar-Ilan
University, Ramat Gan, Israel
ABSTRACT
Research on political communication between MPs and the public has focused
on the role, activities and perceptions of the members of parliament (MPs)
themselves. However, the authors’prior research demonstrated that in fact
social media necessitate a new prism through which to study such
communication. The contribution of the present study is to look at this
relationship through the heretofore under-researched prism of those who in
fact are doing much of the actual communication (at least in Israel): the
parliamentary assistants (PAs). Whereas other studies tend to focus on the
communicative contents, the present research deals mainly with the behind-
the-scenes processes that produce such content.
In this study 26 PAs were interviewed in Israel’s Knesset regarding three
central questions: What are the goals of the MPs’activities on Facebook?
What are the key obstacles perceived by the assistants while maintaining MPs’
Facebook presence? What are the main professional dilemmas that PAs run
into during their Facebook activity on behalf of MPs? By addressing these
questions, the paper contributes to generating a more comprehensive picture
of the ways political Facebook posts are born, and of the processes through
which MPs’social media presence is generated.
KEYWORDS Political communication; social media; Facebook; intermediary; MPs; parliamentary
assistants
Introduction
With the increasing contact between the public and its representatives
through social media, we know much about the outcomes of this contact
(expressed, for example, through Facebook and Twitter feeds and dialogue
through websites), but we know nearly nothing about the process by which
a Facebook post is born. The aim of this study is to provide a broader
picture of the process through which members of parliaments’(MPs’)
social media presence is generated, using interviews with the people who actu-
ally generate it.
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Azi Lev-On azilevon@gmail.com
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES, 2017
VOL. 23, NO. 4, 549–565
https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2017.1394738
Israel is a fruitful arena for studies examining politics and Facebook, being
the world leader in Facebook usage in terms of the percentage of the entire
population who use Facebook and the average amount of time spent on it
(ComScore, 2011); it is also ranked fifteenth in the World Economic
Forum’s Networked Readiness Index of 2013 (Bilbao-Osorio, Dutta, & X
Lanvin, 2013). Not only the public but also MPs have a strong presence on
Facebook. In 2010, the director general of the Israeli parliament (the
Knesset) advised all MPs to open a Facebook page (Mako, 2010). As of
2015, 105 MPs out of 120 (87.5 per cent) had Facebook pages (Steinfeld &
Lev-On, under review).
Many regard the Internet in general and social media in particular as useful
tools for assisting parliamentarians to maintain a continuing dialogue with
their constituents and the general public, cutting out traditional intermedi-
aries such as parties and the mass media. The availability of multiple fast
channels to large publics was thought to generate greater responsiveness
and accountability and pave the way for some new forms of direct democracy
(Blumler & Coleman, 2009; Coleman & Gøtze, 2001; Grossman, 1995; Macin-
tosh & Whyte, 2008).
As the years went by, however, scholars became increasingly aware that
online tools can be used not only to generate a genuine dialogue between
the public and its representatives, but also for another kind of communication
in which the public seems to ‘engage’in policy-making, but in fact it is
‘managed’by decision-makers, i.e. its input is used in very specific circum-
stances and for very specific issues, mainly in order to legitimise decisions per-
ceived as desirable by policy-makers (Bouchard, 2016; see also Serazio, 2015).
Indeed, not only in the realm of public consultation but also in many other
public domains, such as public engagement in campaigning, Howard (2006)
noticed that politicians often abstain from engaging with the public through
online social media, instead channelling dialogue to well-defined spaces and
‘comfortable’issues (Howard, 2006).
In the realm of content creation as well, authors argue that often the labour
of contributing content is indeed outsourced to the audience, whereas the
tasks of editing and synthesising it are left in the hands of intermediaries
(Fisher, 2012; Jonsson & Ornebring, 2011; Petersen, 2008).
A survey of US representatives’staff found that assistants perceive them-
selves as playing a significant role in the Internet activity of their Congressper-
sons (Congressional Management Foundation, 2011). Similarly, in an earlier
Israeli study (Sabag-Ben Porat, Lev-On, & Lehman-Wilzig, under review), it
was found that parliamentary assistants (PAs) are the agents most frequently
in charge of both the content and the technical aspects of their MP’s social
media presence; in other words, MPs rarely maintain their Facebook presence
by themselves, and are seldom personally involved in their online presence. As
a result, although their skills in this area are rarely assessed when hired, and
550 A. LEV-ON ET AL.
often lack formal training in social media activities, it is the PA who functions
as a significant link in the connection between MPs and the public; their
tenure in office and relations with the MP tend to dictate their involvement
level in maintaining their MP’s online social channels (Sabag-Ben Porat et
al., under review).
The current study focuses on three issues of an MP’s Facebook presence:
the goals of the MP’s activities on Facebook, the main obstacles perceived
by the assistants while maintaining MPs’Facebook presence, and the key pro-
fessional dilemmas that assistants run into during their Facebook activity on
behalf of MPs. These questions can offer insight into whether public involve-
ment is indeed perceived by parliamentarians as a dialogue to be carried out,
or a burden to be managed.
The following sections provide theoretical background to the three main
issues that emerged from the open-ended interviews with the assistants
who maintained their respective MPs’social media presence.
Purposes of politicians’Facebook activity
The literature demonstrates that representatives view social media as an excel-
lent way of communicating with their constituents (Williamson, 2009),
gaining information regarding public preferences (Askim & Hanssen,
2008), and enhancing their re-election chances (Jackson, 2011; Lilleker &
Koc-Michalska, 2011). In general, representatives think that the Internet
serves as an important tool for strengthening democracy (Hoff, 2004). Poli-
ticians have also used the Internet as a means of providing a hinterland
that shows them as likeable human beings –sometimes providing details of
their personal interests in music, sport or films, demonstrating a sense of
humour or displaying any other side of their character that they wish to
expose. Thus, they manage to control their political image through selective
disclosure about their private life (Jackson & Lilleker, 2011).
Early studies nonetheless demonstrate that many MPs fail to make use of
exploit the opportunities the Internet provides, employing their online pres-
ence primarily as a message board. For example, their personal websites
served principally as sources of information rather than promoting engage-
ment (Andersen & Medaglia, 2009; Gibson & Ward, 2009; Haleva-Amir,
2011; Jackson, 2003; Lev-On, 2011)–an attempt to avoid ‘confrontation’
with the public and retain control of content (Stromer-Galley, 2000).
These patterns of activity are evident on Facebook as well. In recent years,
Facebook has become the primary tool of representatives’exposure to citizen
input (Askim & Hanssen, 2008). Many representatives indicate that their
principal intention when updating content on Facebook is to introduce and
promote themselves rather than to initiate conversations, in large part out
of concern that public discussions tend to heat up and get out of control
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES 551
(Joshi, Thamm, & Wandhoefer, 2011; Lev-On, under review). Bürger and
Ross (2014), who examined the Facebook usage of New Zealand MPs, demon-
strated that in spite of much talk about interactivity, the information on Face-
book actually flows primarily in one direction –from the politicians to the
public (see also Haleva-Amir, 2010). Tenscher (2014) also argued that
whereas politicians regard Facebook as an important tool for communicating
with the public, they are not always willing to invest resources to maintain a
lively presence on that platform.
Some evidence nonetheless points to an enhanced use of Facebook by
MPs over time. Larsson (2014) identified patterns of ‘permanent campaign-
ing’in the continuous enhanced activity of Facebook by politicians,
accompanied by contact with, mobilisation of, and cooperation with the
public. Arguably, the changes in the level of interaction derive from external
pressures. In Norway, the key catalyst behind MPs’efforts to increase the
level of dialogue on social media was pressure from colleagues, journalists,
and voters. Once they had opened accounts, they reported posting in
order to increase personal visibility, mobilise support, and provide opportu-
nities for dialogue (Enli & Skogerbø, 2013). Metag and Marcinkowski (2012)
found that other parliamentarians’activity influenced MPs to open their own
accounts and attribute greater importance to them. Avery and Graham’s
(2013) study indicated that US politicians also recognised that their col-
leagues’practices stimulate them to make greater use of social media.
Bürger and Ross (2014) found that external variables such as party,
gender, age and class rarely affect the levels of politicians’use of social
media, and that differences between the politicians were due to their positive
or negative experiences with social media and their personal tendency to
embrace, or not, new technologies in general.
Unlike the aforementioned studies that focus on the elected parliamentar-
ians, the present article explores the views of their parliamentary assistants
regarding the target audiences of MPs’Facebook activities and the possible
external factors that influence this activity. Given that in many (and
perhaps most) cases it is not the MP but rather the assistant who manages
the Facebook page (including writing the posts), it is important to complete
the picture by obtaining their perspective of the issues at hand.
Communication with the public is a key goal, but MPs’Facebook activi-
ties can also address journalists. Bernhard and Dohle (2015) found that the
primary target audience of German local MPs (in Germany’s local elections)
is journalists who follow their social media feeds rather than the general
public. Other parliamentarians employ Facebook as an arena that circum-
vents traditional media, principally due to concerns that they do not
receive sufficient exposure and are unable to convey their true position in
the traditional media (Haleva-Amir, 2011; Williams & Gulati, 2013).
Mann (2015) notes how Yair Lapid, a former anchorman turned Israeli
552 A. LEV-ON ET AL.
(former) finance minister, sought to use his Facebook page for direct com-
munication with journalists and the public. Facebook has gradually become
not just a source of maintaining social relationships and entertainment but
also a major source of news as well among the public (Mitchell, Kiley, Gott-
fried, & Guskin, 2013).
Perceived obstacles in maintaining politicians’digital presence:
time constraints and dealing with negative comments
Assistants play an important role in maintaining MPs’digital presence
(Sabag-Ben Porat et al., under review). Belkacem and Busby (2013) identified
them as performing three informational functions: filtering information,
‘synthesising’relevant information from various sources, and preserving par-
liamentarians’positive image and reputation. One of the MPs from the Euro-
pean Union who participated in Belkacem and Busby’s study went so far as to
call his assistant ‘my eyes and ears’. In large part, this is because operating
social media demands a huge time investment (Tenscher, 2014) in order to
monitor, supervise, edit and/or censor content and comments perceived as
negative or libellous. Such work is complex not only because of the need
for constant monitoring of slanderous or profane comments, but also due
to the delicate question of whether also to delete/amend antagonistic, critical,
oppositional posts, and if so, to what extent (Congressional Management
Foundation, 2011)–a further contribution of the present study.
Professional dilemmas: proper disclosure and personal content
The literature dealing with dilemmas encountered by assistants who maintain
politicians’Facebook pages highlights two central concerns: one ethical, the
other technical.
The first is proper disclosure, i.e. should assistants identify themselves
when they contribute content to the parliamentarian’s Facebook page?
Experimental studies demonstrate that the more intense the politician’s
social presence and the higher the frequency with which he or she commu-
nicates online with the citizen, the greater the interest and the more posi-
tive the latter feel towards the politician. In short, the feeling of closeness to
a politician is positively correlated with a sense of their presence (Kruike-
meier, van Noort, Vliegenthart, & de Vreese, 2013; Lee & Shin, 2012a,
2012b).
On the other hand, PAs can update their MPs’digital channels and make
contact with the public without disclosing that in fact they (the PAs) are doing
the speaking and writing. Parliamentarians thus ‘reap the benefit’of see-
mingly direct communication without revealing the true situation.
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES 553
In an earlier study (Sabag-Ben Porat et al., under review), parliamentary
assistants were questioned regarding maintenance of social media on behalf
of their MP. While many were heavily involved in the content –writing
posts and responding to comments –only a quarter reported that they
wrote under their own name. The current study continues to explore this
issue by asking assistants their views of this practice.
The second dilemma deals with the question as to whether MPs should
post only professional content or personal content as well. This issue has
arisen in various countries. Langer (2010), for example, related to the ‘Blair
effect’in the UK and the way in which the personal lives of political figures
are highlighted. She suggested that this represents the emergence of a trend
towards increasing public access to parliamentarians’individual personae –
in contrast to the past tendency to hide their private lives from public view.
As noted above, this also has a snowball effect, encouraging their colleagues
to become more open about their own private lives.
Based on data from 17 European countries, Hermans and Vergeer’s(2013)
study investigated the personal aspect of e-campaigning, finding it to be
prevalent among European parliamentarians. The personal focus primarily
revolves around the representation of parliamentarians as family men and
women. In Israel, Orkibi (2015) found that in election campaigns candidates
used Facebook to strengthen their image as authentic and complex individ-
uals. The current article further explores this dimension of MPs’Facebook
activity by asking their assistants about the type of content that does (and
should) appear on MPs’Facebook pages.
Based on the above literature survey, we ask the following research
questions.
Research questions
(1) How do the assistants perceive the primary goals of MPs’Facebook
activity?
(2) What are the primary obstacles in maintaining MPs’Facebook pages
according to the assistants?
(3) What are the primary professional dilemmas that the assistants face in the
process of maintaining MPs’Facebook pages, in their opinion?
Study design
The collection of data commenced at the beginning of 2013, towards the end
of the eighteenth Israeli parliament. All 120 MPs were contacted by email and
Facebook, and asked to identify the individual tasked with operating their
Facebook page. Three reported that they alone were responsible for their
postings.
554 A. LEV-ON ET AL.
In Israel, each MP may hire three PAs as office staff; MPs who function as
heads of large parliamentary committees are entitled to four PAs, and minis-
ters to four (Liel, 2015). MPs also receive a special ‘contact with the public’
allowance that covers the costs of setting up and operating their parliamentary
offices and staff, and may be used to cover the costs of additional personnel or
service providers to operate their digital presence on websites, social media,
cellular applications, and other online media.
The intermediaries in this article are advisors, spokespersons, and mainly
the PAs of the MPs. Generally, there is no clear separation between the PAs’
parliamentary and media duties –nor is there any specific job description
whatsoever for these intermediaries (Saranga, 2001).
We contacted the MPs several times until we were able to assemble a rela-
tively representative group of interviewees, applying the variables of political
allegiance, (non)existence of internal party primaries, professional media
background, scope of social media usage, and MP’s age. Variables such as
age, gender and political affiliation were found not to be significant in
terms of the level of parliamentarians’Facebook involvement. This group
had similar numbers of high-, medium- and low-intensity social media
users.
1
Eighteen of the 26 (69 per cent) PAs were employed by MPs who
are members of parties that hold primaries; four (15 per cent) had media
experience (10 MPs serving in the 18th Knesset had past media experience).
Finally, 15 of the PAs (58 per cent) worked for MPs over the age of 55. Each
interview lasted around 30 minutes, focusing on the extent of their involve-
ment in social media content production and the practices employed in the
specific parliamentarian’s office.
Findings
Purpose of Facebook usage
Facebook was the most significant tool for online contact with the public
among the majority of the interviewees. G.D. recounted:
Facebook today is the most important tool …if websites were once the main
thing and we tried to market them, today Facebook is much more accessible.
People of all ages are connected to it; it’s far easier to manage it and post things.
Here we sought to understand how the assistants perceive the purpose for
which they use Facebook. Many of them prioritised both direct contact with
the public and MP exposure to the public. Exposure is measured in terms of
the number of fans and ‘likes’the Facebook posts received, with the assistants
describing high numbers as one of their principal targets.
‘Contact with the public’, however, meant different things to different
interviewees. Thus, for example, A.J. described Facebook as ‘The place
where there’s some contact with the public and the only place where we
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES 555
can establish direct, unmediated communication with a very broad public’.
M.C. said that his primary goal was to be ‘in touch with the voters’. When
asked what he meant by this, he replied: ‘To know the schedule of the MP
and the places he goes’.
S.C. identified a different purpose: ‘I’d like to garner as many likes and
responses as possible to the posts –also of course for the page, because
that’s how people understand what N. thinks and what he represents and
then they can identify with him’. Another goal that came up in the interviews
was interaction with journalists, especially the threat to bypass the traditional
media through Facebook. M.E. demonstrates this point:
I personally think that more resources should be allocated to the social media,
because I worked with a very good MP who had a lot to give and contribute but
the journalists weren’talwaysinterestedinthatbecauseitwasboringtothem,
because she didn’t spill a glass of water on anyone and was nice …But the day-
to-day things, if she helped to prevent some bill from passing, then the press
wasn’t very interested. In contrast, I could use all our social media to convey the
full message without editorial censorship and without being taken out of context.
This detailed description shows how social media enable circumvention of
the traditional media, significantly reducing reliance on journalists with the
ability to post on her own, without worry about ‘unfair’editing. The assistant
B.M. added another aspect: ‘Today, instead of passing a press release to all of
the reporters, you do it through Facebook and get the same impact without
much effort’.
V.T. describes the need to work with both traditional and new media:
I think they are complementary forms. There’s still great value in the estab-
lished media in terms of circulation, but also if we succeed in putting viral
content on Facebook. That’s no less great than if we succeed in putting items
in Haaretz [a national daily newspaper] …But we still see that we have to
work on both fronts in parallel …The great advantage of Facebook from our
perspective, apart from the circulation, is that it allows us to deliver more
complex content than in the [traditional] media.
Thus, although the assistants treat Facebook as a way of bypassing journal-
ists, they also use it to reach out to them, understanding that journalists are
exposed to their content on Facebook. Social media are not just a different
coin of communication, they also serve as the obverse side of the traditional
coin, feeding legacy media as well. To this end, much time and thought are
invested in properly managing the MP’s page, posting information and
addressing fans’concerns. On the other hand, other traditional political func-
tions such as raising funds and attracting volunteer workers play no signifi-
cant role in Facebook usage.
There are some perceived obstacles in maintaining politicians’digital pres-
ence: time constraints and dealing with negative comments. During the inter-
views, we sought to discover the principal difficulties the assistants encounter in
556 A. LEV-ON ET AL.
taking care of their MP’s Facebook page, and received a range of responses. The
most common was the ongoing need to monitor the Facebook page’s constant
content stream, with its concomitant relentless need to update, respond and
‘keep a finger on the pulse’. Most of them felt that content is their responsibility,
but controlling this is a ‘race against time’. As E.L. noted: ‘It’s a lot of mess. 24
hours a day. To answer people, to relate to people, to encourage …There’sa
huge amount of work’. B.N. also commented on the amount of work and
time pressure: ‘The thing is that you have to reply quickly, because it’s social
media and if you don’t answer quickly it’s already irrelevant’.
Another issue that arose was the oppositional views expressed on their
Facebook page –the need to identify overly critical comments and criticism
that could cause political damage, and/or locating invective, offensive, or erro-
neous posts. The assistants could not afford to keep inappropriate content or
abusive comments on the page for a long time. But perhaps surprisingly, they
did not have too much problem with the lines of demarcation. On the one
hand, invective, derogatory comments, and offensive material were immedi-
ately removed. The assistants all agreed, however, that critical content in
acceptable language should never be deleted –on ethical grounds and for
fear of criticism over its removal.
P.D., a government minister spokesman, observed that ‘The most difficult
thing is that people can post what they like, even things that are incorrect,
slander and things that aren’t relevant, and we can’t always publish correc-
tions or rebuttals right away’. R.G. added: ‘I tried my best not to [delete
content], because I know the sort of antagonism it can arouse. We would
only delete invective and expletives or something that was really unethical.
I had no problem with criticism’. T.B. gave a similar response: ‘As a policy,
we never delete things. If the content is offensive, you know, if someone
starts cursing the Arabs or homosexuals, then we might’. S.R. explained at
length his view of people who write offensive posts:
People who use invective are immediately removed. I can say unambiguously
that people who give you likes are those who support you and that people
who oppose you are the ones who write responses …You can get 600 likes
and another 50 responses, out of which 40 are invective. It’s not just invective
but also searing criticism. Because there’sno‘unlike’on Facebook, and the only
way a person can respond if he doesn’t like a post is to comment …but things
that are really invective, like ‘fascist,’‘Nazi,’‘idiot,’‘moron’…you delete. But
things that fall within the realm of the legitimate you don’t.
These quotes address some of the central difficulties the assistants encoun-
tered. They perceive Facebook as a medium constituting a great challenge, in
which control can be easily lost, both in terms of the constant battle to keep
up-to-date and respond –a very frustrating and time-consuming task –and in
terms of control over content, reading all the posts and checking that they are
fair and proper.
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES 557
Professional dilemmas: proper disclosure and private content
During the interviews, we asked what types of professional dilemma were
encountered during their work. Among the responses, two stood out. The
first relates to the nature of the content: Did they also update private
content about the MPs or only professional? The second dealt with the ques-
tion of identification: Do the assistants write under their own name, or the
name of the parliamentarian that they work for?
The assistants held diverse opinions on whether MPs should post personal
content (such as references to family and personal life) or whether they felt
that the page should be devoted exclusively to political matters. Some
viewed the page as a purely professional forum, believing personal content
to be inappropriate. However, around 20 (of the 26) perceived personal
posts as helping the MPs and increasing their popularity. The first quotes
here represent the former approach:
In terms of the character of the content, we don’t really connect with personal
things. In general, the page maintains a professional and right-wing nature. At
least 95% and even more are purely professional. When he had a birthday, we
posted something. There are lots of things you know will get a lot of likes but
you don’t post them.
C.B. made a similar point: ‘We only upload posts relating to the work of the
office and issues on the agenda, not personal subjects’. T.P. also related to the
platform as confined to professional matters, arguing that when personal
material is posted it is generally for political or professional reasons:
We primarily post political stuff, some personal. Really marginal, small-scale
stuff. ‘I was just at a karate practice,’for example, or ‘I’ve just come from a
children’s summer camp,’which is also political. With all due respect, it’sdif-
ficult to differentiate between the personal and the professional. Even when
you’re talking about something that’s personal you’re still talking from a pol-
itical standpoint. It’s not really personal …Everything’s political in these
things.
Conversely, the following interviewees accepted the necessity of posting
personal content, reporting that these were the most popular posts, with
the public responding to them in great numbers. There was a greater
sense of closeness to the parliamentarian from the readers. P.L., for
example, stated:
I think that the status that receives the most likes is when she writes ‘I’ma
grandmother.’…Or when her daughter got married and she put photos on
of her with her daughter under the huppa [wedding canopy] …I think that
the most-watched statuses, those the most people like, are precisely the personal
ones. Statuses with Holocaust survivors, the elderly, disabled people …they
have a human and emotional connection and hence people like them and
connect with them more.
558 A. LEV-ON ET AL.
A.R. noted:
On Holocaust RemembranceDay, he usually posts one ofhis personal stories; they
made a video about him as well, in which he spoke in depth. When there were
memorials for his soldiers hewould also post things. It was a type of personal level.
When N.M. was asked about his MP’s content, he chose to focus on
another MP’s use of social media:
We put on political and personal content. In other words, the personal is pol-
itical. I can speak about S. [a right-wing MP], who’s also in the Knesset, who
really uses Facebook a lot, on the level that he arrives in the evening and
says: ‘Guys, I’m going to see a film, what do you recommend?’and he’ll get
around 400 responses. He conducts a discourse with them, you know he’son
Facebook, that he’s there, it’s him! It’s moving that it’s him and people really
like that. In other words, the moment they understand that it’s him, they
freak out …He really did something that wasn’t cynical but personal on Face-
book. But most politicians use personal stuff on Facebook for political reasons.
Most politicians will write: ‘Today I visited X, who suffers from Y.’It looks per-
sonal but in fact it’s political.
This is a significant statement, demonstrating the power of an MP’s presence
and the extent to which it can contribute to the popularity of his or her page.
The second major issue that emerged from the interviews was whether the
fact that their high involvement in their MP’s Facebook page (Sabag-Ben
Porat et al., under review) prompted assistants to identify themselves by
name when writing and communicating with the public, or whether they
wrote in their MP’s name. The findings indicate that only one of the intervie-
wees identified himself by name; the remainder –irrespective of their level of
involvement –did not disclose their identity. When A.C. was asked about
the measure of autonomy he enjoyed, he responded: ‘I often write for him,
but he’s involved. I consult with him. On most occasions, he says: “Listen, I
want to post on this and this subject,”so that’s what I do. But only in his
name’. When T.K. was asked in whose name she signed, she replied: ‘In his
name, and frequently it’s coordinated with him. Lots of times I post things
on my own, but it’s always in his spirit, it’s not me signing, it’s not my text’.
Y.D. described the full responsibility delegated to her:
E. gave me lots of leeway …because of my close acquaintance with him I knew
what he wanted and what was important to him. It wasn’t really of interest to
him. He never went over what I wrote and it was always posted in his name.
Discussion
This study sought to examine the process whereby content is posted on Face-
book by focusing on the key individuals involved in operating Facebook
pages: the PAs. The analysis focused on three parameters in the process of
content creation: What are the goals of the MP’s activities on Facebook?
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES 559
What are the key obstacles perceived by the assistants while maintaining MPs’
Facebook presence? What are the main professional dilemmas that PAs run
into during their Facebook activity on behalf of MPs?
When interviewees were questioned regarding their goals in using Face-
book, they reported that it served as a channel of direct communication
between the parliamentarian and the public at large. In contrast to previous
studies that demonstrated a one-way flow from parliamentarians to the
public (Bürger & Ross, 2014; Haleva-Amir, 2010), one of the assistants’prin-
cipal goals was two-way communication, including receiving and publishing
the public’s posts, with much time and thought invested in how to manage
this properly on their Facebook page. Of course, assistants also used Facebook
to present the MP’s stance, to advance public relations (PR), and for the con-
tinual expansion of supporters, with likes also being identified as a PR goal.
Many of the interviewees viewed social media as a way of circumventing
the traditional media, allowing them to place the parliamentarians’ideas on
the media’s agenda –despite the fact that many think that the legacy media
still provide more exposure. Others do not want to bypass the traditional
media but are aware that journalists follow their feeds, so that Facebook is
treated as a substitute way of getting press releases to journalists or for con-
vening a press conference.
We also addressed the difficulties that assistants encounter in operating
their MP’s Facebook page. Two key subjects arose that had been previously
discussed in the theoretical literature: the time- and labour-intensive nature
of the task (Tenscher, 2014), and the need to attend to critical content and
respond in real time. The assistants found this problematic because managing
the page is only part of their job description and they cannot dedicate them-
selves to it fully. As a result, we can speculate that as social media become
more pronounced in the future, we shall begin to see more exclusively ‘dedi-
cated’assistants –with professional, new media expertise –being hired to
devote all their attention in this area. At that point, the full panoply of
social media functions will come into play, especially wider, ongoing, two-
way, interactive dialogue with the public. Indeed, this could even include
public suggestions and discussions regarding legislation or policy-making –
a form of emergent direct democracy.
Another challenge lay in the professional dilemma of how to deal with the
invective and oppositional views that the page generated. Here, too, the assist-
ants exhibited a keen sense of responsibility regarding the page, fearing that
censorship or the deletion of content could cause significant damage to
their parliamentarian’s image. Most of them testified that, except for cases
of hate or incitement, they do not censor content. They did not relate to a
much more recent development: fake news (professional disinformation) –
something that future research in this area should pursue.
560 A. LEV-ON ET AL.
A second dilemma involved the identification and disclosure of the assist-
ant’s identity when posting content to the MPs’Facebook pages. Previous
studies have found that the real presence of prominent figures on Facebook
makes people feel closer to them, motivating the public to action (Lee &
Shin, 2012a,2012b). Our interviews demonstrated that people are far more
excited when knowing that the real MP is behind the screen and the com-
munication is informal and authentic. Despite this, most assistants do not
identify themselves by name even when they are responsible for the posts
rather than the MPs themselves, the issue of proper disclosure not bothering
them. However, it should be noted that none of them purposely tried to
mislead the public (e.g. ‘I saw a great political movie last night …’); rather
the duplicity was more a matter of benign obfuscation.
It would be worthwhile also to examine whether proper Facebook disclos-
ure ethics develop in the future. At the moment, though, it seems that stan-
dard practice is identical to what occurs in the realm of speech-writing for
politicians –the speech-writer’s name is never mentioned and there does
not seem to be any public demand for this to change.
The final issue examined was whether MPs’Facebook pages should contain
personal as well as professional content. The literature (Hermans & Vergeer,
2013; Langer, 2010) demonstrates that personal content is very common, with
assistants believing that it garners more likes. A minority, however, believed
that their MP’s Facebook page should be confined to strictly professional
content.
Future studies should comparatively explore the role of intermediaries in
social media presence of politicians and other public figures with other
countries where Facebook (and other social media, e.g. Twitter) is a
popular communication tool between parliamentarians and the public. This
is especially true in those countries (such as the US) where each legislator is
provided with numerous congressional assistants, in theory enabling at least
one to be dedicated solely to social media. A follow-up study could also
analyse: whether new practices and concepts develop over time regarding
the role of such intermediaries; the character and target audiences of their
social media activities; relations with traditional journalists (e.g. reporters)
and non-traditional journalists (e.g. bloggers); the practices of self-disclosure;
as well as the focus on personal lives.
The literature is divided between seeing public engagement as a burden to be
managed or as an opportunity for dialogue with the public. The present study’s
interviews suggest that the second option better resembles the PA’s perception
and approach. Although this is time-consuming and requires dealing with
complex dilemmas and making difficult decisions, nevertheless the general
goal of greater contact with the public is certainly something from which
both MPs and their constituencies should be able to benefit, on condition
that the MPs parliamentary assistants are provided with the proper tools.
THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES 561
Note
1. Low-intensity social media users had Facebook pages with 0–5000 likes; mod-
erate-intensity social media users had Facebook pages with 5000–10,000 likes;
and high-intensity social media users had Facebook pages with over 10,000
likes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Dr. Azi Lev-On (PhD, New York University, 2005) studies the uses and perceived
effects of social media, public participation and deliberation online, online commu-
nities, collective action and campaigns, and behaviors in computer-mediated
environments.
Chen Sabag-Ben Porat is a PhD. candidate in the School of Communication in Bar
Ilan University. Her research focuses on the impact of election methods on the
relationship between parliamentarians and the public through social media.
Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig (PhD, Harvard U, 1976) served as chair of the Dept. of Pol-
itical Studies (2004–2007) and the School of Communication (2014–2016) at Bar-Ilan
University (Israel), and also as Chair of the Israel Political Science Association (1997–
1999). He studies political communication, new media and journalism, and the infor-
mation society. He authored 50 academic articles and book chapters plus two books in
those fields.
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