Hacking the Attention Economy: the Use of the Twittersphere of Italian Party Leaders Before the 2018 Elections

The 2018 Italian Parliamentary elections were marked by the success of populist parties. With the consolidation of hybrid media, campaigning on Twitter became an increasingly important communication channel for party leaders. An analysis of Twitter communications from 1 February 2018 to 4 March 2018 (day of the elections) reveals that Matteo Salvini and Matteo Renzi dominated the election campaign in the Twittersphere. Other party leaders did not use Twitter as skilfully as these two politicians and their engagement indicators are lower than those of Salvini and Renzi. The internal communicational dynamic between the party leaders shows that their main target was Matteo Renzi. Even though he had the most followers within this period and, overall, his communication indicators were good, in the end his party suffered a historical loss at the elections.