The Influence of Political Actors in the Digital Public Debate on Twitter About the Negotiations for the Formation of the Government in Spain

Bibliographic Data

ID3759314
AuthorsAndreu Casero-Ripollés (0000-0001-6986-4163, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Castello de la Plana, Spain, corresponding author), Laura Alonso-Muñoz (0000-0001-8894-1064, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Castello de la Plana, Spain), Silvia Marcos-García (0000-0003-1682-1009, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, Castello de la Plana, Spain)
Year2022
Volume66
Issue3
Pages307-322
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00027642211003159
OpenAlexW3142304022
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited39

Social media has introduced new parameters that can potentially transform the digital political conversation. Traditionally, in the age of mass communication, public debate was dominated by politicians and journalists. However, digital platforms, primarily Twitter, have allowed other social actors to join the political discussion, trying to influence it. The objective of this research is to establish what factors enable the authority and digital influence of political actors in the public debate on Twitter. We use a big data sample of 127.3 million tweets from the negotiation process around the formation of the Government in Spain. The applied methodology is based on social network analysis and machine learning. The results show that ideology, political initiative, and political career are configured as factors capable of conditioning the authority and influence of political actors in the political conversation on Twitter

Conversation · Digital media · Government (linguistics) · Ideology · Media studies · Negotiation · Political communication · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social media · Social science · Sociology · Communication · Cultural and political discourse analysis · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics

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