From social movements to political parties. Barcelona en Comú’s electoral message, uses and limitations on Twitter during 2015 city council election

Abstract

Twitter as an electoral communication tool is determined by the objectives and the character of each political organization. This article analyses the communication strategies of the political organization Barcelona en Comú on Twitter for a better understanding of the way in which new political forces work in a digital environment. The case study is based on qualitative content analysis with several categories related to the message and the digital network possibilities. The amount of 1,840 tweets from two groups of Twitter accounts was analyzed. First, the tweets disseminated by the six parties that form the electoral coalition Barcelona en Comú. Second, the tweets disseminated by politicians and members of communication commission of the parties. The results allow us to conclude that one of the six parties centralised the communication of the confluence. Also, that the bidirectional communication process among parties and users took place in the second group of Twitter accounts.