What motivates political parties to use social media, and how does this usage correlate with outcomes such as party success? As social media platforms have become increasingly important for political communication, these questions have gained prominence in the literature on both party politics and social media politics. In this paper, we contribute to these discussions by introducing a new dataset on the social media activity of 498 political parties across 37 countries on four platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, from account creation to the end of 2023. The dataset provides rich aggregated data on posting volume and timing, enabling the study of long-term patterns in platform adoption, communicative patterns, and parties’ online activity. The paper presents the data, provides descriptive and inferential findings on how political parties engage with social media, and outlines several research avenues enabled by this dataset.
BarberáPZeitzoffT (2018) The new public address system: why do world leaders adopt social media?International Studies Quarterly62(1): 121.
2.
BarberàOSandriGCorreaP, et al. (2021) Digital Parties. Springer.
3.
BarrieCHoJC (2021) academictwitteR: an r package to access the Twitter academic research product track V2 API endpoint. Journal of Open Source Software6(62): 3272.
4.
BartlettJBirdwellJLittlerM (2011) The New Face of Digital Populism. Demos.
5.
DavidsonTREnosJ (2025) Engaging populism? The popularity of European populist political parties on Facebook and Twitter, 2010–2020. Political Communication42(1): 171–200.
6.
De SioLWeberT (2020) Issue yield, campaign communication, and electoral performance: a six-country comparative analysis. West European Politics43(3): 720.
7.
DeseriisM (2021) Rethinking the digital democratic affordance and its impact on political representation: toward a new framework. New Media & Society23(8): 2452.
8.
DommettKPowerS (2019) The political economy of Facebook advertising: election spending, regulation and targeting online. The Political Quarterly90(2): 257.
9.
DöringHRegelS (2019) Party facts: a database of political parties worldwide. Party Politics25(2): 97–109.
10.
EngesserSErnstNEsserF, et al. (2017) Populism and social media: how politicians spread a fragmented ideology. Information, Communication & Society20(8): 1109.
EvansHKVictoriaCSipoleS (2014) Twitter style: an analysis of how house candidates used Twitter in their 2012 campaigns. PS: Political Science & Politics47(2): 454.
13.
FilimonovKRussmannUSvenssonJ (2016) Picturing the party: Instagram and party campaigning in the 2014 Swedish elections. Social Media + Society2(3): 2056305116662179.
14.
GarmurMKingGMukerjeeZ, et al. (2019) CrowdTangle platform and API. Harvard Dataverse3: 2019.
15.
GerbaudoP (2014) Populism 2.0: social media activism, the generic internet user and interactive direct democracy. In: Social Media, Politics and the State. Routledge, 67–87.
16.
GerbaudoP (2017) The Mask and the Flag: Populism, Citizenism, and Global Protest. Oxford University Press.
17.
GerbaudoP (2021) Are digital parties more democratic than traditional parties? Evaluating podemos and movimento 5 Stelle’s online decision-making platforms. Party Politics27(4): 730.
18.
GibsonRK (2015) Party change, social media and the rise of ‘Citizen- initiated’campaigning. Party Politics21(2): 183–197.
19.
GibsonRKMcAllisterI (2015) Normalising or equalising party competition? Assessing the impact of the web on election campaigning. Political Studies63(3): 529–547.
20.
GilardiFGesslerTKubliM, et al. (2022) Social media and political agenda setting. Political Communication39(1): 39–60.
21.
GilmoreJ (2012) Ditching the pack: digital media in the 2010 Brazilian congressional campaigns. New Media & Society14(4): 617–633.
22.
González-CachedaBCancela OutedaC (2025) Digitalisation and political parties in Europe. Party Politics31(3): 488–498.
23.
GulatiGJWilliamsCB (2013) Social media and campaign 2012: developments and trends for Facebook adoption. Social Science Computer Review31(5): 577.
24.
JollySBakkerRHoogheL, et al. (2022) Chapel Hill expert survey trend file, 1999–2019. Electoral Studies75: 102420.
25.
JungherrA (2016) Twitter use in election campaigns: a systematic literature review. Journal of Information Technology & Politics13(1): 72–91.
26.
JungherrA (2023) Digital campaigning: how digital media change the work of parties and campaign organizations and impact elections. In: Research Handbook on Digital Sociology. Edward Elgar Publishing, 446.
27.
KalsnesB (2016) The social media paradox explained: comparing political parties’ Facebook strategy versus practice. Social Media + Society2(2): 2056305116644616.
28.
KeffordGDommettKBaldwin-PhilippiJ, et al. (2023) Data-driven campaigning and democratic disruption: evidence from six advanced democracies. Party Politics29(3): 448–462.
29.
KlingerU (2013) Mastering the art of social media: swiss parties, the 2011 national election and digital challenges. Information, Communication & Society16(5): 717–736.
30.
Koc-MichalskaKLillekerDGMichalskiT, et al. (2021) Facebook affordances and citizen engagement during elections: European political parties and their benefit from online strategies?Journal of Information Technology & Politics Technology & Politics18(2): 180–193.
31.
LarssonAO (2022) Picture-perfect populism: tracing the rise of European populist parties on Facebook. New Media & Society24(1): 227–245.
32.
LillekerDGKoc-MichalskaKNegrineR, et al. (2019) Social Media Campaigning in Europe. Routledge Abingdon.
33.
LüdersMFølstadAWaldalE (2014) Expectations and experiences with MyLabourParty: from right to know to right to participate?Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication19(3): 446.
34.
MargettsH (2006) Cyber parties. In: Handbook of Party Politics. University of Oxford, 528.
35.
Olof LarssonA (2023) The rise of Instagram as a tool for political communication: a longitudinal study of European political parties and their followers. New Media & Society25(10): 2744–2762.
36.
PinedaABellido-PérezEBarragán-RomeroAI (2022) ‘Backstage moments during the campaign’: the interactive use of Instagram by Spanish political leaders. New Media & Society24(5): 1133–1160.
37.
PliqueGBreteauPFarjasJ, et al. (2019) Minet, a Webmining CLI Tool & Library for Python. Zenodo.
38.
QuinlanSGummerTRoßmannJ, et al. (2018) Show me the money and the party!’–variation in Facebook and Twitter adoption by politicians. Information, Communication & Society21(8): 1031–1049.
39.
RooduijnMPirroALPHalikiopoulouD, et al. (2024) The PopuList: a database of populist, far-left, and far-right parties using Expert-Informed Qualitative Comparative Classification (EiQCC). British Journal of Political Science54(3): 969–978.
40.
RussmannUSvenssoJLarssonAO (2019) Political parties and their pictures: Visual communication on Instagram in Swedish and Norwegian election campaigns. In Visual political communication. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 119–144.
41.
SandriGGarcia LupatoFMeloniM, et al. (2024) Mapping the digitalisation of European political parties. Information, Communication & Society28: 1–22.
42.
ScarrowSEPaulDWThomasP (2017) Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power. Oxford University Press.
43.
StierSPopaSATheocharisY, et al. (2025) Online election campaigning in changing political environments: a comparison of the 2014 and 2019 European parliament elections. Party Politics13540688251317855.
44.
TheocharisYBoulianneSKoc-MichalskaK, et al. (2023) Platform affordances and political participation: how social media reshape political engagement. West European Politics46(4): 788–811.
45.
ThomeczekJP (2024) Political communication on Facebook: do populist parties send out more posts?Party Politics30(6): 1143.
46.
VergeerM (2015) Twitter and political campaigning. Sociology Compass9(9): 745.
47.
VergeerMHermansL (2013) Campaigning on Twitter: microblogging and online social networking as campaign tools in the 2010 general elections in the Netherlands. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication18(4): 399–419.
48.
VottaFKruschinskiSHoveM, et al. (2024) Who does (n’t) target you? Mapping the worldwide usage of online political microtargeting. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media4: 1–73.
49.
WhitesellAReuningKHannahAL (2023) Local political party presence online. Party Politics29(1): 164–175.
50.
WilliamsCBGulatiGJ‘J’ (2013) Social networks in political campaigns: Facebook and the congressional elections of 2006 and 2008. New Media & Society15(1): 52–71.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
