Almost a year after the unexpected election of Stefanos Kasselakis as president of opposition party SYRIZA, he finds himself deposed in a maelstrom of party controversies.
September 24, 2023: Kasselakis wins the party presidency with 55.98% against Efi Achtsioglou.
September 17, 2023: The day when Kasselakis is first in the internal elections of SYRIZA and passes with a clear lead to the second round.
What had preceded?
21 days earlier, he had not even officially declared his candidacy.
3 months earlier, he was an unknown figure in Greek political landscape.
In such a short period of time, Kasselakis launched a systematic and strategically planned social media presence, a communication “blitzkrieg” as Xenophon Kontiadis describes it in his book The Kasselakis phenomenon. The TikTok platform appears to have been the center of his political campaign.
How Modern Political Communication Has Transformed Into a Digital Spectacle
“The concept of authenticity has from the very beginning of social media been a very important demand in how users are encouraged to present themselves and their lives.“
The rapid emergence of Stefanos Kasselakis into the Greek central political stage demonstrates the increasingly critical role of social media in contemporary political communication.
Kasselakis, who describes himself as a self-made businessman, used digital platforms to position himself as the ideal presidential candidate for the SYRIZA party. But what was his strategy and what communication practices did he employ?
An authenticity-constructing practice was identified at the core of his communication strategy.
Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Professor of Discourse Analysis and Sociolinguistics at King’s College London, explains that the concept of authenticity has been a vital element in how social media users are encouraged to portray themselves from the very start of these platforms. They are algorithmically designed in ways that compel users to post content that reflects authentic self-presentation. This is what former Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom referred to as “imperfect sharing.”
On TikTok, the distance between the spectacle and the spectator narrows, making personal involvement easier.
This type of content steps away from the idealized digital self and comes closer to the authentic offline life. The immediacy of “presenting my life as it is” constitutes a component of authenticity and is also a popular practice for algorithms as it ties into the economy of attention on social media, Georgakopoulou observes.
The camera is everywhere; In the car, in the living room, on the street.
The politician appears in a constant digital broadcast of his life building a fictional relationship with the audience – a digital proximity with features of real intimacy. On TikTok, the distance between the spectacle and the spectator narrows, making personal involvement easier.
In the digital space, the boundaries between public and private life are often blurred.
What was once considered illegal surveillance of one’s personal life, the so-called “peeping through the keyhole”, now seems to have become a common political communication strategy.
An important shift is taking place in political communication teams. The focus is moving from speechwriters to filmmakers and directors.
This direct relationship is cultivated through sharing life in the moment.
What does it mean to be authentic on TikTok?
Stefanos Kasselakis attempts to build a persona of an unmediated relationship with his audience, often discussing processes of direct democracy. Indicatives are the videos where he invites his audience to comment on policy proposals, reads them publicly and adopts some of their suggestions.
This direct relationship is cultivated through sharing life in the moment, as Georgakopoulou notes.
Kasselakis frequently portrays himself as a defender and protector of the truth, enriching his digital presence with aspects of realism.
He emphasizes “we must speak the truth”, “the people deserve to have a person in leadership who will tell them the truth”, “my only agenda is my truth”.
Immediate future narratives become a systematic practice. He focuses on potential, possible worlds and hope, often asking a recurring question “what would happen if I were in leadership?”.
Stefanos Kasselakis uses TikTok platform narratively through small, fragmented, everyday stories grounded in the “here and now”, Georgakopoulou.
