The Debate about Europe on Twitter. Speeches and Strategies of the Candidates for the European Parlament elections in 2014 in Spain

Authors

  • Guillermo López García
  • José Vicente Gámir Ríos
  • Francisco José García Ull
  • Germán Llorca Abad
  • Lorena Cano Orón
  • José Luis González Esteban

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18042/cepc/rep.170.07

Keywords:

European Parliament Elections 2014, Twitter, Political communication, cyberpolitics

Abstract

This article describes the electoral campaign developed in social networks (specifically Twitter) by candidates of eight Spanish political parties in European Parliament elections of May 2014. The main objective of the analysis is see to what extent the discourse of candidates is framed to European or national scope issues. The analysis suggests three complementary methodological approaches: a quantitative analysis of the activity of the candidates on Twitter; a content analysis of messages posted by candidates throughout the election campaign; and finally, an discourse analysis derived from the daily monitoring of the campaign.