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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]

We examine how Catalan election campaigns have evolved to postmodernization, a concept coined by Pippa Norris to refer to the current political scenario and how this is reflected in different electoral phases. We analyzed four electoral campaigns covering a decade (2003-2012) through 27 face-to-face in-depth interviews conducted with campaign managers for nine political parties. The results indicate that, although Catalan politics is progressing toward the postmodern phase, there are still aspects that are far from fully adapted to the changes affecting all levels of society. Catalan political parties seem to be more comfortable with modern or classical political approaches -- such as control over traditional media -- and are but slowly reacting to other issues such as citizen demands for more access to, and prominence in, politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]