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This paper analyzes the use of Twitter by the candidates for the presidency of the Government of Spain of the five main parties at the national level -PSOE, PP, Vox, Podemos and Ciudadanos- of the general elections campaigns held in April and November 2019. The main purpose of our study is to determine the strategies used of the microblogging network by the leaders, both in terms of activity, interaction and notoriety and in terms of topics and discursive development, as well as their similarities and differences. The secondary objective is to study the evolution of these strategies both between the two campaigns and with respect to previous elections. To this end, the research is based on a content analysis methodology that studies quantitative, qualitative and discursive elements. The results reveal an uneven use of Twitter in terms of the frequency of updates, but similar in terms of its unidirectionality, with scarce interaction with other users and a predominance of tweets with their own content over retweets. The dissemination of other people's content was used almost entirely to promote the candidate's political party and, to a lesser extent, to interact with journalists. Dialogue with citizens was almost always residual, both in retweets and in responses. This utilitarian conception of the microblogging network was accompanied by a polarizing thematic selection, with an almost general preponderance of political issues over policy issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the information coverage by the Spanish newspapers El país, El mundo, ABC, and La vanguardia in Twitter on the electoral campaign prior to the 10 November 2019 general elections. A content analysis of all tweets published by these media regarding the elections (n = 1,462) between Friday 1 and Saturday 9 November reveals that, although there are differences in the production patterns and features of the messages, the subject received notable attention in all the newspapers. The coverage gravitated around two main themes: the 4N electoral debate, and campaign events. The results reveal that, although most of the tweets had a neutral tone, messages with clear positioning corresponding to the editorial line of the newspaper were also published, albeit to a lesser extent. During the electoral period, the media agenda revolved around this issue, accounting for around one-fifth of all pieces published on Twitter. Newspapers do not take advantage of the dialogic nature or possibilities offered by this social network to create a community among their readers, limiting themselves to the dissemination of content from their digital edition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]