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The Spanish general elections of 20 December 2015 and 26 June 2016, which can be understood as an electoral continuum, were notable for being the first case of a repeated election in Spain's history, the consequence of the difficulty in forming a government due to the emergence of two new political forces, Podemos and Ciudadanos, led by Pablo Iglesias and Albert Rivera, respectively. We analysed the Twitter communications of these political leaders in both election campaigns using quantitative and qualitative research techniques, we also compare the overall results with the results of the Top Discussion Indicator (TDI). The main objectives of the study were: a) to determine the degree of influence and the ability to create community of both political leaders; b) to identify strategic communication differences between the two leaders and changes between the two campaigns; and c) to investigate the interconnections between their Twitter profiles and media profiles (mainly Spanish newspapers and TV channels). Our findings indicate that issues linked to their own campaigns were the most discussed by these politicians. It is noted that political leaders have little capacity to influence beyond their own community on Twitter, in this sense, hybridization with traditional media and, in particular, with television helps to penetrate beyond the digital sphere. In addition, it was found that Pablo Iglesias and Albert Rivera interacted most with Atresmedia and Prisa group media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the dissemination of fake news and the traditional media outlets' loss of centrality, the credibility of digital news emerges as a key factor for today's democracies. The main goal of this paper was to identify the levels of credibility that Spanish citizens assign to political news in the online environment. A national survey (n = 1669) was designed to assess how the news format affected credibility and likelihood of sharing. Four different news formats were assessed, two of them linked to traditional media (digital newspapers and digital television) and two to social media (Facebook and WhatsApp). Four experimental groups assigned a credibility score and a likelihood of sharing score to four different political news items presented in the aforementioned digital formats. The comparison between the mean credibility scores assigned to the same news item presented in different formats showed significant differences among groups, as did the likelihood of sharing the news. News items shown in a traditional media format, especially digital television, were assigned more credibility than news presented in a social media format, and participants were also more likely to share the former, revealing a more cautious attitude towards social media as a source of news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]