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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 analyses the evolution of the electoral use of Instagram in Spain, from its origins as a political communication channel to its current consolidation. A content analysis of eleven variables is applied to the formal, spatial, personal, thematic-discursive and interactive dimensions of the activity carried out on this social network by the candidates for the presidency of the Spanish Government of the parties that ran with the highest vote expectations in the General Elections of December 2015, June 2016 and April and November 2019 (571 posts). The results show the consolidation of Instagram as a political communication tool and the growing interest of the parties in it, as well as the increasing importance of short videos as a format. The electoral use of this social network is carried out with an increasingly mobilising intention, as evidenced both by the themes chosen and, above all, by the purpose of the publications, the spatial context represented and the hashtags used. The growing characterisation of candidates as leaders of the masses is also evidence of the personalisation of political leadership that occurs in this medium during electoral campaigns. Finally, the phenomenon of polarisation and the presence of populist stylistic traits are also beginning to be noticeable, as reflected in the increase in political issues and negative emotional appeals in the messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]