Party Resources and Facebook Advertising Ahead of the Italian 2022 General Elections

Using Italy as a case study, this article addresses a thus far under explored topic within the social media political marketing literature exploring the linkage between resource availability and the use of social media advertising by political parties and leaders. By adopting a party organization perspective, we engage in the “equalization” versus “normalization” scholarly debate questioning whether, and the extent to which, levels of party spending on Facebook paid media are related to the political actors’ economic resources. This research question is investigated by providing an empirical analysis of the political advertisements published on Facebook by the six major political parties in Italy (Azione, Forza Italia, Fratelli d’Italia, Movimento 5 Stelle, Lega Salvini, Partito Democratico) and by their respective leaders ahead of the Italian general elections of 25 September 2022. Based on the over 10.000 contents collected using CrowdTangle and the Meta Ad Library, we analyze the total volume of Facebook content published by parties and party leaders, its distribution between organic and paid media tools, and the financial resources spent on paid media by the individual parties.