Gender and social media in contentious elections

The purpose of the project is to explore how social media affects political candidates in repressed states and whether male and female candidates are affected differently

Social media has changed the preconditions for public debates. For instance, they are suggested to have both positive and negative impacts on political candidates in repressive regimes. On the one hand social media may give opposition candidates and other marginalized groups new possibilities to organize and conduct campaign activities. On the other hand social media may provide repressive regimes with new tools to silence and intimidate opposition candidates. In the project we will take a closer look at these dynamics in connection with the parliamentary election in Tunisia 2019. We will also investigate whether male and female candidates are affected differently by social media, says Pär Zetterberg who heads the project.

Principal Investigator: Pär Zetterberg (Department of Government)

Period: 1 January 2019–31 December 2021

Funding: SEK 3 900 000, Swedish Research Council's Development Research Grant