Act Local, Mobilize National: The Role of Mayors' Social Media Activity in National-Level Political Mobilization

The research examines the role that mayors' social media activities play in nationwide political mobilization. It argues that mayors' social media pages, serving as key local information sources and hubs of local public discourse, reach voters who otherwise avoid political content and are less politically engaged. As a result, mayors' social media activities become significant channels for mobilization in the political sphere. The primary manifestation of this is that while during "calm periods," their role in providing local information helps attract politically less active residents, during campaign periods, they use this visibility for mobilization purposes, interpreting national political mobilization messages at the local level for their followers. In this way, voters can be mobilized through mayors, even those who are much harder to reach by national political actors. To test this theory, we rely on a nationally representative survey (N=1,000) and a five-wave longitudinal content analysis focusing on mayors' (N=100) Facebook activity in Hungary between 2020 and 2022 covering two "calm periods" (before and after an election campaign), two campaign periods (the 2021 autumn primary elections and the 2022 election campaign), and during the COVID period (1,200 posts from each wave). In line with the theoretical framework, the study focuses on three research questions: (1) which voter groups are reached by mayors through Facebook?; (2) how do mayors communicate on Facebook across different periods?; (3) is there any detectable mobilization effect related to national political activity among their followers? Our findings confirm that mayors' social media activity can reach less engaged and less committed segments of voters who are exposed to limited political information on Facebook. We also demonstrate that while mayors are cautious during non-campaign periods, they actively campaign during national mobilization periods. However, we did not find any detectable mobilization effect of their campaign activity on Facebook.