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Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election / ADAM BURNS

Swansea University Author: ADAM BURNS

Abstract

Although there has been a growing amount of research into the role of social media in elections across the globe over the past few decades, the field is still relatively nascent in comparison to the analysis of election campaigning in more traditional formats. This thesis builds on this growing lite...

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Published: Swansea 2025
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Master of Research
Degree name: MA by Research
Supervisor: Wall, M. and Tudor, J.
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa70603
first_indexed 2025-10-07T11:57:25Z
last_indexed 2025-11-15T14:32:19Z
id cronfa70603
recordtype RisThesis
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spelling 2025-11-14T10:42:13.4299580 v2 70603 2025-10-07 Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election 9b38ad83d41e98dc4cb5ad89541a1706 ADAM BURNS ADAM BURNS true false 2025-10-07 Although there has been a growing amount of research into the role of social media in elections across the globe over the past few decades, the field is still relatively nascent in comparison to the analysis of election campaigning in more traditional formats. This thesis builds on this growing literature, offering a sustained theoretical and empirical focus on the personalisation of social media campaign messaging. Furthermore, this thesis sheds light on this aspect of campaigning as it relates to one of the smaller parties in UK politics, the Liberal Democrats, rather than focusing primarily on the Conservative and Labour parties. It explores this activity over the course of the 2024UK General Election campaign, which the party centred around the idea of electing local champions in seats where the Conservatives were previously dominant – the so-called “Blue Wall”.In order to analyse the level and nature of personalisation, a typology of four different characteristics was created. These characteristics, alongside other factors that arose in the literature, were then used to code the Twitter/X campaigns of eight Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs). Using statistical methods to identify outliers, the thesis moves to a qualitative analysis to illustrate the core finding that personalisation in all candidates’ Twitter/X profiles was extensive. Beyond this, the analysis reveals that personalisation varied significantly in tone, with some candidates consistently preferring to overtly politicise their messaging, while others preferred a mix of overtly and non-overtly political personalisation. Despite expectations that PPCs running in more marginal constituencies might make increased use of personalisation compared with those in safer Conservative seats, the findings here suggest that candidates across different types of constituencies all used extensive personalisation in line with the party’s strategy of electing local champions, rather than primarily focusing on the party and its leadership more generally. E-Thesis Swansea Liberal Democrats, social media, personalisation, 2024 UK General Election, online campaigning 3 10 2025 2025-10-03 Due to Embargo and/or Third Party Copyright restrictions, this thesis is not available via this service.ORCiD identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1792-7665 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Wall, M. and Tudor, J. Master of Research MA by Research 2025-11-14T10:42:13.4299580 2025-10-07T12:43:58.3694137 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Social Sciences - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations ADAM BURNS 1
title Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
spellingShingle Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
ADAM BURNS
title_short Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
title_full Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
title_fullStr Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
title_full_unstemmed Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
title_sort Local Champions: The Personalisation of Liberal Democrat Social Media Campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election
author_id_str_mv 9b38ad83d41e98dc4cb5ad89541a1706
author_id_fullname_str_mv 9b38ad83d41e98dc4cb5ad89541a1706_***_ADAM BURNS
author ADAM BURNS
author2 ADAM BURNS
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Social Sciences - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Social Sciences - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations
document_store_str 0
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description Although there has been a growing amount of research into the role of social media in elections across the globe over the past few decades, the field is still relatively nascent in comparison to the analysis of election campaigning in more traditional formats. This thesis builds on this growing literature, offering a sustained theoretical and empirical focus on the personalisation of social media campaign messaging. Furthermore, this thesis sheds light on this aspect of campaigning as it relates to one of the smaller parties in UK politics, the Liberal Democrats, rather than focusing primarily on the Conservative and Labour parties. It explores this activity over the course of the 2024UK General Election campaign, which the party centred around the idea of electing local champions in seats where the Conservatives were previously dominant – the so-called “Blue Wall”.In order to analyse the level and nature of personalisation, a typology of four different characteristics was created. These characteristics, alongside other factors that arose in the literature, were then used to code the Twitter/X campaigns of eight Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs). Using statistical methods to identify outliers, the thesis moves to a qualitative analysis to illustrate the core finding that personalisation in all candidates’ Twitter/X profiles was extensive. Beyond this, the analysis reveals that personalisation varied significantly in tone, with some candidates consistently preferring to overtly politicise their messaging, while others preferred a mix of overtly and non-overtly political personalisation. Despite expectations that PPCs running in more marginal constituencies might make increased use of personalisation compared with those in safer Conservative seats, the findings here suggest that candidates across different types of constituencies all used extensive personalisation in line with the party’s strategy of electing local champions, rather than primarily focusing on the party and its leadership more generally.
published_date 2025-10-03T05:26:27Z
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score 11.089572

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