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Instagram has become an important tool to contact the audiences both in commercial and political communication. Of special interest is the use of this social network by politicians, who can use the image to portray a humanized version of themselves: it is not the candidate but the person who is talking to citizens through impacting images posted on their personal profiles. The present study posits that Instagram is a key tool for self-representation. This paper offers a specific study about the use of Instagram by the five main candidates in the Spanish general elections in 2019. The main aim of this paper is to study if the Spanish candidates showed themselves on Instagram in a more humanized way during the electoral campaign. Departing from Goffman's theory about the presentation of the self, a content analysis has been carried out as methodology, where Goffman's concepts have been operationalized. The analysis was applied to a total of 473 Instagram posts, covering both a pre-election period and an election period. Results show that Spanish candidates tend to show themselves as professional politicians, but some candidates of new parties increment their humanization in the elections period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the use of Telegram as an electoral communication tool in Spain, focusing on the messages sent by the five major parties in the country (PSOE, PP, Vox, Unidas Podemos and Ciudadanos) during the campaigns corresponding to the general elections of April 28 and November 10, 2019. This research paper steps outside this somewhat still narrow area of methodology by combining two different research techniques on a methodological triangulation: traditional content analysis and data mining processes using Python. Results, which show how political parties in Spain use Telegram mainly as a mobilization tool while expressing closeness with the candidate, are contextualized thanks to the implementation of Big Data analysis techniques that improve and allow for an in-depth investigation and understanding of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the visual aspects of the official profiles on Twitter of the main candidates for the Spanish general election of 2015. For this purpose, a qualitative methodology is used through a category system applied to the study sample, which is composed of 527 images. This research concludes that the management of the images made by the profiles of the main political candidates, who attend the general elections, focuses especially on the figure of the politician, leaving aside fundamental aspects such as the presentation of proposals and new initiatives for citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research about the concept of influence on Twitter is still underdeveloped. This work is a theoretical and empirical approach on how politicians are engaging with citizens and/or journalists, and how these social conversations are framed under specific topics and users. The idea of new influentials on political communication in the new media ecosystem, as some studies found (Dang-Xuan et al, 2013), can offer empirical pursuit of the suggested 'two-step flow model' as applied to the agenda-setting process (Weimann et al., 2007) in the case of the microblogging for campaigning online. Following the recent research about how politicians try to reach their potential audience (Vaccari and Valeriani, 2013; 2013a), this paper analyses the social conversations on Twitter driven by politicians, the main topics in these political conversations and the kind of flows of communication (direct or indirect) between politicians, journalists and citizens. This research explores the differences and similarities about influence on Twitter during European elections in two countries with similar political and economic contexts: Portugal and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberative democracies are based on the principle of citizens' participation. However, election turnouts and citizens' alienation are signs of a political disengagement that could endanger the foundations of democratic systems. The spaces in which political debate and rational argumentation between equals may take place have diminished, yet new digital technologies have brought up potentialities in the promotion of online, horizontal and deliberative communication. Political blogs have been one of the most studied platforms, as they allow citizens engaged in political discussion and argumentation to establish a public sphere in which matters of public concern are debated. Nonetheless, issues of political polarization, fragmentation and non-rational debate have also been pointed out to limit the most optimistic perspectives over political blogs. By using the social network analysis, this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of Portuguese political blogs, by assessing its level of deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is investigated through a careful quantitative and qualitative monitoring of the news in Veracruz, to figure out the influence of the press in the electoral behaviour through the analysis of the media tendency of 10 local papers, selected from their regional geographical cover, during the Elections to choose Federal Representatives in 2009. The Theory is based on the paradigm of the electoral behaviour in the psychosocial model that matches with the researches of the mass media, political culture, and public opinion, all these framed in social representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]