In 2014, the EU introduced the lead candidate procedure to raise citizens’ awareness and interest in the European Parliament (EP) elections and, thereby, voter turnout. We study the use of personalization, centralized personalization (focusing on lead candidates), emotional personalization, and private personalization on Facebook by political parties across 12 countries during the 2014 and 2019 EP campaigns and the effects of personalization on user engagement. A standardized quantitative content analysis of 14,293 posts by 227 political parties shows that about half of the Facebook posts were personalized, but there is no general trend of rising personalization. While emotional personalization increased, parties hardly ever posted about their lead candidates and their private lives. Variations are not due to structural (e.g., party and media systems) or geographical/cultural factors. Positive effects are found for the use of emotional personalization attracting a higher volume of user reactions (likes, reactions, shares, and comments) in both elections.

中文翻译：

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个人的、私密的、情感的？政党如何在 2014 年和 2019 年欧洲议会选举活动中使用 Facebook 上的个性化策略


2014年，欧盟引入了主要候选人程序，以提高公民对欧洲议会（EP）选举的认识和兴趣，从而提高选民投票率。我们研究了 2014 年和 2019 年欧洲议会竞选期间 12 个国家/地区的政党在 Facebook 上使用个性化、集中个性化（重点关注主要候选人）、情感个性化和私人个性化的情况，以及个性化对用户参与度的影响。对227个政党的14,293条帖子进行标准化定量内容分析显示，大约一半的Facebook帖子是个性化的，但总体上并没有出现个性化上升的趋势。尽管情感个性化程度有所提高，但政党却很少发布有关他们的主要候选人及其私生活的信息。差异不是由于结构（例如政党和媒体系统）或地理/文化因素造成的。在两次选举中，情感个性化的使用吸引了更多的用户反应（点赞、反应、分享和评论），从而产生了积极的影响。