Analysis of Political Discourse on the Official Facebook Profiles of Split Mayoral Candidates During the Second Round of the 2021 Election Campaign

In recent years, political actors worldwide have purposefully utilized social networks to address their supporters and the general public, as mainstream media regularly transmit their posts to their audiences and often relay them in their original form. Such research is lacking in Croatia, so this study aims to contribute to the discussion on this topic. This qualitative study examines the use of discursive techniques in posts on the official Facebook profiles of Ivica Puljak and Vice Mihanović during the 14 days of the second round of the mayoral election campaign for Split in 2021. Drawing on the media agenda theory, the political discourse analysis method covered posts exclusively related to the election campaign (N=42). The analysis was based on an author-developed coding matrix based on van Dijk's (1997) argumentation strategies. The results indicate that the candidates utilized manipulation, keywords, the highlighting of political values, manifest and latent ideological components in their messages, thus confirming the media agenda setting for political purposes as a critical intention of their communication.