Twitter, the End of Bipartisan Politics and the Rise of Populism. The Spanish Campaign in May 2015

Abstract

Introduction: The seemingly unshakable bipartisan political system in Spain started to crumble in the wake of the European Elections of 2014, giving way to a more fragmented distribution of seats. Such process crystallised in the Regional Elections of 2015, highlighting an already anticipated decay of traditional parties PP and PSOE and rise of populist parties like Podemos. Materials and Methods: Focusing on the discourse of Spanish politicians on Twitter, as one of the most recent political communication tools politicians had to learn to deal with, this paper offers a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Results: We discuss, from a communication perspective, similarities and differences among parties and politicians on whether communication 2.0 changed and/or enriched political discourse leading up to a redistribution of parliamentary seats. Discussion: This paper stress the impact of social networks and the implementation of different communication strategies to address the collapse of bipartisanship in Spain.