Analysis of the political discourse in Twitter in Spain

The case of general elections april 2019

Authors

  • Víctor Renobell Universidad internacional de la Rioja

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18042/cepc/rep.194.10

Abstract

This research focuses on the general elections that took place in April 2019 in Spain. It analyzes the broadcast of the speeches performed by the main candidates through Twitter (tweets, retweets, comments and likes). A quantitative and qualitative analysis were carried out on the data offered by the candidates on the social network Twitter. The working hypotheses are related to the characteristics of the main studies in the area. The depersonalization and unidirectionality of existing political discourses in Spain are analyzed, as well as the characteristics of their speeches on Twitter through four main variables: level of preferences, interaction, originality and visual tendency. A NSA analysis was also carried out in reference to the connection nodes in Twitter network. Track and monitoring of Twitter have been carried out following the methodological principles of contemporary netnography during the last ten weeks before the elections. Among the main conclusions, it must be highlighted that one of the main deficiencies in the political discourse on Twitter is the lack of debate and interaction with users. The present work corroborates the hypotheses of similar works, it is the polarization of the discourses of political parties on Internet and the utopian democratization of the use of social networks by politicians and citizens.

Published

2021-12-03

Issue

Section

RESEARCH NOTES