Belgians are set to vote in several key elections this year, and it was recently announced that the country’s most radical political parties have increased their spending on political campaign ads on social media the most over the past year. This was discovered through a survey.
Belgians are in for a busy election year as they look to vote in the EU and federal elections on 9 June, followed by municipal and regional elections four months later.
But far-right parties spent the most on social media campaigns, according to a study by Meta, which compared spending on targeted advertising on social media, Facebook and Instagram.
For example, the Flemish far-right party Vlaams Belang (ID Group) increased spending the most by 50.6% between the first and fourth quarters of 2023. The party has increased campaign advertising spending for leader Tom Van Grieken. Increased by 13.1%.
Of the 13 main political parties currently active in Belgium, the six with the highest spending over the past three months were, unsurprisingly, all Dutch-speaking parties.
In fact, Vlaams Beran was followed by the right-wing party NVA (ECR), the far-left bilingual party PVdA PTB (Left), the Flemish Socialist Party Voruyt (S&D), the liberal Open VLD (Renew) led by Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, and the Flemish Party. followed. Christian Democratic Party (CDNV, EPP).
It ranks behind the French-speaking Liberal Party MR (Renew) and the Christian Democratic Party Les Angages (EPP), but ahead of the last Dutch-speaking party in the ranking, Les Verts/ALE.
However, while the study notes that overall meta-based social media spending by political parties has fallen by 4%, the Flemish branch of the Belgian far-left party is the biggest spender overall, with 48.2% It also says that it has recorded an increase. .
Meanwhile, NVA reduced spending by 47% despite being the second-largest spender.
But most interestingly, the study showed that Dutch-speaking parties spent 87% of the total spent by Belgian political parties on social media campaigns between October and December last year.
Flemish parties continue to invest significantly more than their French-speaking counterparts, and their spending is the highest among radical parties across Europe, but a series of studies published in July 2023 found that , it remains unclear whether targeted social media advertising has a real impact. According to US media outlet CNBC, this proves that there has been a long-term change in voting behavior as a result of these ads.
(Claire Lemaire | Euractiv.com)
