| Abstract [eng] |
The Master's thesis "Polarisation in The Heat of The Elections: an Analysis of Comments on The Facebook Accounts of The 2024 Lithuanian Presidential Candidates" analysed the negative comments written under the posts of the Lithuanian presidential candidates on Facebook platform. Using the theories of social identity, social bubbles, emotional polarisation and qualitative content analysis, the study sought to answer the question: what kind of comment bubble portraits of the presidential candidates are formed by distinguishing between their forms of negativity and negative emotions? What are the repertoires of negativity that dominate the commentators' bubbles? How does emotional polarisation manifest itself in bubbles? What narratives are constructed in bubbles? This study demonstrated that the theories of social bubbles, emotional polarisation and social identity are not only applicable to Facebook, but can also contribute to the study of politics, communication and the interaction between different bubbles in our region. This is demonstrated by the diversity of bubbles, the variety of negative emotions and forms of language, and the formation of multiple narratives, ideas and thoughts in bubbles. In some communities, there was a clear distinction between 'our' and 'their' groups, features and aspects of the social collective identities of those communities, and recurring themes within the same bubble. A review of the communities of all eight candidates shows that they are neither homogeneous internally nor too similar to each other. However, they all share one phenomenon: negative comments. This shows that no matter how many people post, disrespectful interactions on social networks are clearly a problem that has developed in our region. Commentators have often complained that the election "debate is turning into a marketplace", but there is no way to call their own interactions a debate; unfortunately, the latter is more appropriate here. As has been noted, comments were mostly unregulated. An examination of the Facebook comment communities of all eight candidates for the presidency of the Republic of Lithuania reveals that there is a clear divide between the candidates: their bubbles can be divided into non-systemic and systemic. The bubbles of support can be identified as those of Jeglinskas, Mazuronis, Šimonytė, Žalimas and to a large extent Nausėda. Meanwhile, the comment bubbles of the remaining three candidates - E. Vaitkus, I. Vėgėlė and R. Žemaitaitis - were characterised by exactly these features. Their communities expressed a deep distrust of the authorities, the media and international organisations, and were dominated by hatred towards national and social minorities, political opponents and other candidates. The study showed that non-systemic bubbles are highly polarised, dominated by negative emotions and hostile narratives, and that criticism often goes beyond constructiveness and reflects deep societal divisions. Anger, rage, contempt, frustration, anxiety, fear, sadness dominated the non-systematic bubbles, all of which were strongly polarising emotions directed against the opponents (in Vėgėlė’s case, also against the candidate), the ruling majority of the time, the social minorities, and the situation in Lithuania and the "Western world". Also, although the study investigated comments rather than the electorate, it found a number of relevant points of contact with analyses of the electorate of these candidates. Looking into the possibility of future research, for which this work opens a niche, one could also look at other politicians, why politicians hardly control the comments under their posts and allow unconstructive discussions to flourish freely (and some of them encourage them), and one could further explore the specific Lithuanian communication on social networks and the negative comments phenomenon. |
