Greek political leaders on TikTok: crafting visual bonds in election and non-election times

The study examines how Greek party leaders use TikTok to build visual bonds with audiences through personalized, privatized, and ordinary portrayals within a broader shift toward pop politics and celebrity-like performativity. Drawing on theories of personalization (individualization and privatization), perceived political authenticity, and platform-specific visual flows, the paper situates TikTok as a space where politicians perform professional, personal, and private personas to reduce psychological distance and enhance authenticity. Research focus: analyze leaders of New Democracy (Kyriakos Mitsotakis), SYRIZA (Alexis Tsipras; later Stefanos Kasselakis), and PASOK-KINAL (Nikos Androulakis) from account inception to March 15, 2024, spanning election and non-election periods (including the May and June 2023 elections). Hypotheses and questions: (H1) Politicians primarily construct positive self-images rather than attack opponents. (H2) Most posts will depict the politician. (Q1) Intensity of symbolic connectivity with social actors (politicians, media professionals, celebrities, non-political actors, citizens). (Q2) Intensity of showcasing political activities (official/unofficial). (Q3) Intensity of presenting ordinariness (humor, backstage, direct address, individualization/privatization). (Q4) Associations between these styles and viewer engagement. Importance: clarifies platform-specific political communication and extends visual communication research beyond Instagram to TikTok, highlighting implications for engagement and political marketing.

Prior work shows SMPs amplify personalization and privatization, aligning political communication with celebrity culture and pop politics. Visual platforms (e.g., Instagram) enable curated flows of professional, personal, and private content, fostering parasocial bonds, authenticity, and perceived immediacy/consistency. Personalization has hard (professional focus) and soft (private life, personality) dimensions, both linked to voter evaluations. TikTok adds short-form, algorithmically curated, mobile-native video with affordances for humor, explanatory/documentary styles, and performative content attractive to younger audiences. Research indicates many political actors prioritize performativity/politainment over dialogic interaction, with limited leveraging of interactive features. Generation Z tends to prefer backstage, emotive, and personally involved content, and perceives politicians as more authentic on social media than in mainstream media. This study builds on Instagram findings for Greek leaders, testing whether similar visual-personal strategies translate to TikTok and how ordinariness, connectivity, and politicization relate to engagement.

Design: quantitative content analysis of TikTok posts (video plus caption) from leaders’ personal accounts, from account inception through March 15, 2024. Sample: 591 posts—Kyriakos Mitsotakis (96), Alexis Tsipras (306), Stefanos Kasselakis (44), Nikos Androulakis (145). Periods: electoral (May 21–June 25, 2023) and non-electoral (pre-announcement to March 28, 2023, and June 26, 2023–March 15, 2024). Coding unit: post. Measures: - H1: stance (positive self-image vs attacks on opponents). - H2: self-depiction present/absent. - Connectivity index (0–5 components per post): depiction with (1) other politicians, (2) media professionals, (3) celebrities, (4) non-political actors (e.g., scientists, NGOs, business), (5) citizens. - Political activity index (0–8 components): (1) official occasion, (2) own policy proposals, (3) critiques of other parties/policies, (4) political performances, (5) party content, (6) daily professional footage, (7) participation in demonstrations, (8) media appearances. - Ordinariness index (0–7 components): (1) explanatory content, (2) humor, (3) unofficial occasions, (4) personal non-political footage (individualization), (5) family/friends (privatization), (6) direct address to camera, (7) answers to user questions. - Viewer engagement scale: views, likes, comments, favorites, shares (collected Feb 10–Mar 15, 2024). Analysis: SPSS 29; chi-square, t-tests, ANOVA, and correlation analyses; 95% confidence interval.

H1 (partially accepted): • Kyriakos Mitsotakis emphasizes positive self-image; opposition leaders (Alexis Tsipras and Stefanos Kasselakis) more often attack opponents; Nikos Androulakis balances self-presentation and critique. • During electoral period, emphasis on positive self-image increases versus non-electoral periods. H2 (accepted): • Vast majority of posts depict the politician; up to 99% for Mitsotakis (chi-square p=0.121). Connectivity (Q1): • Mean connectivity instances per post (Table 1): Tsipras 0.48; Mitsotakis 0.41; Androulakis 0.41; Kasselakis 0.16. • Connectivity increases during electoral period (Table 2): non-electoral mean 0.36; electoral mean 0.52 (t-test p<0.001). • Connectivity targets (Table 3, counts of posts depicting): with citizens—Tsipras 121, Mitsotakis 23, Androulakis 43, Kasselakis 6; with non-political actors—Tsipras 15, Mitsotakis 11, Androulakis 13, Kasselakis 0; with celebrities—Tsipras 5, Mitsotakis 1, Androulakis 1, Kasselakis 0; with media professionals—Tsipras 4, Mitsotakis 0, Androulakis 1, Kasselakis 0; with politicians—Tsipras 1, Mitsotakis 4, Androulakis 2, Kasselakis 1. Political activity (Q2): • Mean political activity instances per post (Table 4): Androulakis 1.54 (max 4), Kasselakis 1.43 (max 5), Mitsotakis 1.21, Tsipras 1.18 (Brown-Forsythe/Welch p=0.001). • Political activity slightly lower in electoral period (Table 5): non-electoral 1.34 vs electoral 1.21 (t-test p=0.086, n.s.), indicating depoliticization pre-election. • Specific political instances (Table 6, counts): own policy proposals—Tsipras 59, Mitsotakis 60, Androulakis 38, Kasselakis 23; critiques of other parties—Tsipras 124, Mitsotakis 61, Androulakis 61, Kasselakis 26; political performances—Tsipras 106, Mitsotakis 34, Androulakis 61, Kasselakis 5; official occasions—Tsipras 3, Mitsotakis 1, Androulakis 2, Kasselakis 3; party content—Tsipras 19, Mitsotakis 9, Androulakis 8, Kasselakis 0; daily professional footage—Tsipras 0, Mitsotakis 0, Androulakis 0, Kasselakis 1; media appearances—Tsipras 49, Mitsotakis 10, Androulakis 54, Kasselakis 5. Ordinariness (Q3): • Ordinariness index means (Table 7): Mitsotakis 1.64 (max 5), Kasselakis 1.14, Tsipras 0.30, Androulakis 0.13 (p<0.001). • Ordinariness higher in electoral period (Table 8): non-electoral 0.29 vs electoral 0.88 (t-test p<0.001). • Ordinariness components (Table 9, counts): direct address—Mitsotakis 58, Androulakis 14, Kasselakis 32, Tsipras 18; humor—Tsipras 59, Mitsotakis 40, Androulakis 4, Kasselakis 8; explanatory—Mitsotakis 11 (others 0); unofficial occasions—Mitsotakis 24, Kasselakis 1, Tsipras 3, Androulakis 1; personal non-political—Mitsotakis 5, Kasselakis 5, Tsipras 1, Androulakis 0; family/friends—Mitsotakis 6, Tsipras 6, Kasselakis 4, Androulakis 0; answering user questions—Mitsotakis 13, Tsipras 4, Androulakis 0, Kasselakis 0. Engagement correlations (Q4, Table 10): • Viewer engagement correlates strongly and positively with ordinariness (r=0.663, p<0.001); weakly and negatively with political activity (r=-0.141, p<0.001); not significantly with connectivity (r=-0.014, p=0.728). Overall: ordinariness boosts engagement; politicized content slightly depresses engagement; connectivity usage rises in elections and centers on citizens.

Findings show Greek leaders adopt platform-specific strategies on TikTok that prioritize personalization and ordinariness over direct political content, especially during elections. Mitsotakis and Kasselakis systematically deploy ordinariness (humor, direct-to-camera, backstage/unofficial content) to foster perceived authenticity and proximity, aligning with research on visual connectivity and celebrity-like performativity. Tsipras and Androulakis feature more connectivity and political instances but engage less in direct dialogic practices. Opposition leaders lean more into confrontational content (attacks), while the incumbent emphasizes positive self-presentation and own policy achievements. Compared with Instagram, TikTok’s spoken video format facilitates oppositional critiques akin to Twitter/X, yet overall dialogic interaction remains limited: few posts answer user questions, indicating one-way politainment rather than deliberative engagement. The positive association between ordinariness and engagement suggests that interpersonal, relatable styles are effective for audience interaction, whereas heavily politicized content may reduce attention and reactions. These results underscore the partial depoliticization of campaign messaging on TikTok during critical periods, with implications for political marketing and voter outreach among younger demographics.

The study contributes a platform-specific framework—connectivity, political activity, and ordinariness—to analyze political TikTok communication, demonstrating that ordinariness-oriented strategies substantially increase engagement, while overtly political content slightly diminishes it. It maps differences across leaders and periods, revealing heightened positive self-presentation during elections and widespread self-depiction across posts. Comparative insights with Instagram highlight how TikTok’s video affordances enable both politainment and confrontation, yet still fall short in facilitating dialogic interaction. Future research should expand the sample to additional leaders and parties, incorporate user-centered analyses of perceptions and comments, and track longitudinal changes as politicians and audiences adapt to TikTok’s evolving features.

Key limitations include the relatively small number of posts for Stefanos Kasselakis due to his recent leadership (from September 24, 2023), constraining generalizability of his strategy. TikTok’s rapidly evolving dynamics limit the temporal scope of any single study. The sample focuses on leaders of the three largest parties; broader inclusion of smaller parties and other politicians is needed. The study primarily analyzes content output and engagement metrics captured during a defined data window; deeper investigation of user responses and perceptions is necessary to assess the effectiveness and reception of strategies.