Social networks have become repositories of Big Data that can be mined and analyzed to gain insights into the activities and preferences of Internet users. The present research relies on a large dataset from Twitter to examine emotional content, activity patterns and interaction networks of political parties and politically active users during the campaign for the Spanish national elections of November 2011. Our results show remarkable differences in political parties according to the diffusion and communication dynamics within the microblogging network. The study of the networks generated by the main parties allows us to identify different strategies depending on the characteristics of the analyzed parties in the offline word. Furthermore, we discuss the adaptation of the political structures of the parties to this new communication and organizational paradigm emerged from Internet and online social networks.

1. Tweeting the campaign:
Evaluation of the Strategies performed by Spanish Political Parties
on Twitter for the 2011 National Elections
Pablo Aragón, Karolin Kappler, Andreas Kaltenbrunner,
Jessica G. Neff, David Laniado, and Yana Volkovich
Barcelona Media Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
Internet, Politics, Policy 2012
Oxford, September 20, 2012

2. Outline
Background on the Spanish election
Historical overview
Spanish election system
Goals and research questions
Data collection
Results
Evolution of the number of tweets
Evolution of the affective content
Diffusion dynamics
Communication dynamics
Conclusions and further research
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3. Historical overview
Spanish Government
1977-1982 UCD
1982-1996 PSOE
1996-2004 PP
2004-2011 PSOE
2011-now PP
http://www.publico.es/especial/elecciones-generales/2011/resultados/historico.php
Since 1982, PSOE and PP are the two major national parties alternating the Spanish Government.
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4. Spanish election system
Election process
Although the Spanish legislative system is bicameral:
Congress of Deputies (effective power)
Senate
The Spanish Constitution states that “the law distributes the total
number of deputies, assigning a minimum initial representation to each
district and the remainder is distributed in proportion to the population”.
Small national and new parties complain that the system favors:
two major parties
regional nationalist parties
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5. Spanish election system
Economical budget and access to traditional media
The electoral law regulates:
thresholds to private donations,
prohibitions of donations from outside Spain,
According to the results in the previous elections:
grants for the campaign of each party,
media coverage during the campaign.
Some minor parties claimed lack of coverage during the campaign.
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6. Goals and research questions
Identify activity peaks in social media and examine the
reaction of political party members to offline events.
Analyze variations in the affective content expressed by
political party members during the campaign.
Are parties with low parliamentary representation forced
into alternative digital strategies?
“the process of formation and exercise of power relationships is
decisively transformed in the new organizational and technological
context derived from the rise of global digital networks of
communication as the fundamental symbol-processing system of our
time” (Castells, 2009).
Is there a real and active debate among parties on Twitter?
“a significant share of this form of mass self-communication is closer
to electronic autism than to actual communication”? (Castells, 2009).
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7. Data collection
3M political tweets published by 380K users in Nov 4-24, 2011.
Tweets selected if:
containing a hashtag linked to the campaign
(#20n, #elecciones20n, #votapsoe, #votapp,
#15m, #nolesvotes, …)
written by a user previously identified as a
member of a political party.
written by a user previously identified as an
activist, journalist, radio/television program,
mass media channel focused on the
campaign.
mentioning the political party/candidate
profile of PSOE, PP, IU, UPyD, EQUO, CiU or
ERC.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 7
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

8. Results: Evolution of the number of tweets
Activity on Twitter is strongly influenced by events in the offline world:
the election debate (>500k tweets)
the closing day of campaign (>200k tweets)
the election day (>400k tweets)
Users actually showed less active during the election silence. Even in the unregulated space
of Twitter, the reflection day was followed and generally accepted.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 8
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

9. Results: Evolution of the number of tweets
The peaks are consistent in the tweets posted by members of political parties.
The parties participating in the debates and the ones with favorable electoral
results acquire higher levels of activity in these peaks.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 9
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

10. Results: Evolution of the affective content
Comparison of tweets by
PSOE and PP with the
Spanish ANEW lexicon
(Redondo et al., 2007)
Highest values of
valence/dominance of
the winning party on
the days prior to the
Election Day.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 10
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

11. Results: Diffusion dynamics
Parties with traditional mass media coverage (PSOE,PP,CiU,ERC vs. UPyD,IU,EQUO)
generate more content from the account of the candidate than from the party's
official account.
Most of these parties (PSOE,PP,CiU) opt for co-managing the account of the
candidate with a professional team of communication.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 11
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

12. Results: Diffusion dynamics (retweets)
Members of political parties
propagate, almost exclusively,
contents coming from members
of their own party.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 12
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

13. Results: Diffusion dynamics (retweets)
Social Network Analysis reveals:
Parties with limited mass media
coverage (EQUO and UPyD)
generate more clustered
networks with a bigger giant
component => stronger
community cohesion.
Fragmentation occurs more
intensively in coalition of parties
(IU).
The most cohesive parties
generate network structures
with the highest levels of nested
k-cores.
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 13
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

14. Results: Diffusion dynamics (retweets)
Parties and/or candidates are central elements in the diffusion dynamics
over the election campaign (except for IU).
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 14
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

15. Results: Communication dynamics (replies)
The most intensive communication
flows occur between members of the
same party.
Considerable levels of
communication among
members of different parties:
PP - PSOE
IU - UPyD - EQUO
ERC - CiU
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 15
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

16. Results: Communication dynamics (replies)
Again, EQUO, UPyD, and IU show the highest clustering coefficient
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 16
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

17. Results: Communication dynamics (replies)
In most party replies networks, the candidate is the most central user.
Important presence of politicians in the top-users rather than corporate party accounts
National major parties: PSOE, PP (winner)
National minor parties: IU, UPyD, EQUO 17
Nationalist parties: CiU, ERC

18. Conclusions
The winning party already anticipated its victory in the affective content of its
tweets in the days prior to the election day.
Almost no retweets between members of different political parties. Also
conversations (replies) take place mostly among members of the same party.
Minor and new parties, with limited access to traditional media, tend to be more
clustered and better connected, which implies a more cohesive community.
The candidate and/or party accounts are central elements in the diffusion
dynamics. However, in communication dynamics only the candidates remain as
central elements.
Users prefers to interact with accounts that correspond to politicians
rather than political corporate accounts
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19. Further research
Explore topological patterns of the party networks and
characterize the different party apparatus as centralized,
decentralized or distributed networks (De Ugarte, 2007).
http://lasindias.org/el-poder-de-las-redes/
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20. Further research
Explore topological patterns of the party networks and
characterize the different party apparatus as centralized,
decentralized or distributed networks (De Ugarte, 2007).
Contrast the topological patterns of the party networks with
the networks produced by recent citizens' movements.
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21. Questions?
Thank you for your attention!
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22. References
Castells M, (2009). “Communication power”.
Oxford University Press.
De Ugarte D. (2007). “El poder de las redes”.
Colección Biblioteca de las Indias.
Redondo J., Fraga I., Padrón I., and Comesaña M. (2007). “The Spanish
adaptation of ANEW (affective norms for English words)”. Behavior
Research Methods, 39(3), 600-605.
Psychonomic Society Publications.
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