The EU Parliament on Twitter—Assessing the Permanent Online Practices of Parliamentarians

Larsson, Anders

doi:10.1080/19331681.2014.994158

Cited by 69 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…A spike in replies is observed towards the end of the election, presumably because politicians respond to congratulatory messages, and in a matter of a week the whole Twitter activity effectively dies out. This last is consistent with Larsson (2015) …”

Section: Tweet Type and Volume Throughout The Campaignsupporting

confidence: 79%

“…Usage of these platforms seems specifically designed for campaning, rather than general political communication: once elections are over, there is very little use of Twitter by parliamentarians for the purpose of campaigning outside electoral periods Larsson (2015). To date, no studies have examined the content of social media communications by European candidates.…”

Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

et al. 2016

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Social media play an increasingly important part in the communication strategies of political campaigns by reflecting information about the policy preferences and opinions of political actors and their public followers. In addition, the content of the messages provides rich information about the political issues and the framing of those issues during elections, such as whether contested issues concern Europe or rather extend pre-existing national debates. In this study, we survey the European landscape of social media using tweets originating from and referring to political actors during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign. We describe the language and national distribution of the messages, the relative volume of different types of communications, and the factors that determine the adoption and use of social media by the candidates. We also analyze the dynamics of the volume and content of the communications over the duration of the campaign with reference to both the EU integration dimension of the debate and the prominence of the most visible list-leading candidates. Our findings indicate that the lead candidates and their televised debate had a prominent influence on the volume and content of communications, and that the content and emotional tone of communications more reflects preferences along the EU dimension of political contestation rather than classic national issues relating to left-right differences. In this paper we map the usage of social media in the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election focusing on Twitter, including an analysis of the networks of followers, the usage of national and cross-national hashtags related to the EU, and the types of Twitter communication. We focus on Twitter because it is the most widely adopted platform by politicians for the purposes of personal promotion, diffusing policy positions, mobilization and because it enables a more direct and interactive engagement with the public. Applying sentiment analysis to the text of the Tweets, we also assess various levels of sentiment associated with particular concepts or individuals or countries. Finally, by looking at the associations of message content with external policy measures of candidate parties, we are able to map content and associations within the text to get a picture of the dialogue across the Euro-

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Section: Tweet Type and Volume Throughout The Campaignsupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

et al. 2016

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“…Although politicians in Western democracies tend to use Twitter throughout the year (maybe) as a permanent campaign tool (cf. Larsson ), politicians and candidates seek contact with citizens chiefly during election campaigns. With social media available to politicians and parties for use in electioneering, a new campaign model has emerged – personalized campaigns (Vergeer et al ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twitter and Political Campaigning

Vergeer

2015

Sociology Compass

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The use of Twitter by politicians, parties, and the general audience in politics, particularly during election campaigns, has become an extremely popular research field almost overnight. Even though Twitter, a medium that emerged early in 2006 -the first tweet was posted on 21 March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter -and elections occurring only every few years, it has already received much academic attention. The studies produced are very diverse, ranging from analyzing how politicians or citizens use Twitter, to looking at their activities and the content of political Twitter messages, to network studies of Twitter users. This review will cover many types of studies that characterize the field. The large diversity in the studies conducted on elections will be represented in this review of approaches.

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“…Over the past decade, social media have been integrated and widely used by politicians worldwide (Grant, Moon, & Grant, ; Gulati & Williams, ). The ease of adoption, the capacity to bypass the mainstream media and create a personal publicity channel, and the limitless opportunities for personalized communication have made them important campaign tools that candidates can use as a permanent form of communicating with the electorate (Grant et al, ; Larsson, ; Lee & Oh, ; Williams & Gulati, ). Twitter, perhaps the most widely adopted platform by politicians and one with the capacity to enable a more direct and interactive engagement with the public, was supposed to open the door for more citizen voice and participation in the political process via different means, counteracting one of the main inhibitors of political involvement—the fact that “nobody asks” (Rosenstone & Hansen, ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bad Workman Blames His Tweets: The Consequences of Citizens' Uncivil Twitter Use When Interacting With Party Candidates

et al. 2016

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Existing studies focusing on politicians' adoption of Twitter have found that they use it primarily as a broadcasting tool. We argue that citizens' impolite and/or uncivil behavior is one possible explanation for such decisions. Social media conversations are rife with harassment and politicians are a prime target. This alters the incentive structure of engaging in dialogue on social media. We use Spanish, Greek, German, and U.K. candidates' tweets sent during the run‐up to the recent European Parliament elections, and rely on automated text analysis and machine learning methods to measure their level of civility. Our contribution is an actor‐oriented theory of political dialogue that incorporates Twitter's specific affordances, clarifying how and why Twitter's democratic promise may be limited.

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The EU Parliament on Twitter—Assessing the Permanent Online Practices of Parliamentarians

Cited by 69 publications

References 81 publications

Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Twitter and Political Campaigning

A Bad Workman Blames His Tweets: The Consequences of Citizens' Uncivil Twitter Use When Interacting With Party Candidates

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