Live political events on Twitter: The case of the 2015 Election Night in Spain

Abstract

In contemporary democratic society, Twitter can promote a genuine public debate where the discussion is not limited to established social actors. The goal is studying how media outlets, journalists, political parties, candidates, and citizens behave on Twitter while following the 2015 election night in Spain. A quantitative analysis has been used, specifically focused on the activity generated on Twitter during the period of vote counting (n=201,661 tweets). The data was captured with Tweet Binder, a web tool that allows the live monitoring of the flow of tweets related to an event using specific hashtags and keywords. The results reveal that media outlets are at the centre of Twitter activity (representation), but citizens gain high visibility by using humour in the conversation (participation). Founded on the distinctive characteristics of the Spanish context, this article contributes to the understanding of the role of Twitter during a live political event.