Social media and democracy: The Fiji 2022 National Election

Abstract

Since the 2014 Fiji General Election, social media political campaigning has continued to be a consistent feature in the country’s politics. This was evident in the 2022 National Election with many more political parties engaging in creative and innovative ways to campaign and engage voters. Since the 2018 elections, there have been a number of developments that led to the formation of new parties and declining popularity of the ruling FijiFirst party. This has provided a new context for social media political campaigning. Building on reviewed work around social media political campaigning from the 2014 and 2018 national elections, this article examines social media use in the 2022 General Election. It discusses some of the emergent trends and patterns of campaigning that are likely to prevail in social media use and Fiji elections.

Keywords

• analytics
• case study
• digital ethnography
• digital media
• elections
• Fiji