THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTORAL COMMUNICATION ON FACEBOOK IN KOSOVO (2014–2025): ACTIVITY, CONTENT FORMATS, AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative quantitative-longitudinal analysis of the performance of major political actors in Kosovo and their leaders on Facebook during the 10 days of the parliamentary election campaign in two periods separated by 11 years: 2014 and 2025. The study focuses on three dimensions: communicative activity, visual formats, and audience engagement. Data were collected manually from the official Facebook pages of political actors and analyzed at an aggregated level for each actor. The paper uses relative indicators such as engagement per post, videos per post, and ratios of comments/reactions and shares/reactions to distinguish between volume-based strategies and communication-efficiency strategies. The results indicate a substantial increase in campaign activity and interaction in 2025, the standardization of video as a digital-campaign format, and a continuing tendency toward personalization, with leaders generally generating higher engagement efficiency than party pages. Keywords—digital political communication; election campaign; audience engagement; Facebook; personalization of politics