Analysis of Facebook negative campaigns led by leaders of selected political parties before the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in 2021

1 Abstract This thesis deals with the analysis of the negative campaigns run by seven leaders of political entities before the 2021 Czech parliamentary elections. Specifically, it focuses on the content found on the Facebook accounts of Andrej Babiš, Petr Fiala, Marian Jurečka, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Ivan Bartoš, Vít Rakušan and Tomio Okamura. Attention is paid to the form and frequency of negative advertisement as it is an integral part of the pre-election period and, in the examined elections, was employed often in the campaign's strategy. In the theoretical section, negative advertising is placed into the wider scope of current trends in political communication and is tied in with political marketing tools. In relation to the unclear definition of the phenomenon, a unifying definition is introduced. Negative advertising is then further separated into subtypes, introduced in the Czech environment, and connected with concepts and theories debating the extent and perception of the use of negativity and emotion in campaigns. The quantitative analysis of content generates statistical data, explaining the method in which negative advertisement is used, its subtypes and affective components. Based on this, it evaluates the extent of negativity present in individual campaigns as well as their emotional tone...