Abstract

GONCALVES, Vítor. Portuguese Party Leaders on Twitter: Interactions and Media Hybridisation Strategies. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2023, vol.44, e023018.  Epub Oct 25, 2023. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.44(2023).4828.

This study aims to understand to what extent Portuguese political party leaders use the interactions accessible on Twitter, namely the retweets, mentions of other users and hyperlinks, and to observe which connection networks are created - whether within the party or outside of it, such as citizens or political actors from other parties. Additionally, we verify how political actors use Twitter to implement a strategy in the hybrid media system model, establishing links to “traditional media” such as newspapers, radio, and television. The data comprises tweets published by four Portuguese party leaders, from Partido Socialista, Partido Social Democrata, Bloco de Esquerda and Chega, during 2021 and 2022, subsequently subject to content analysis using the MAXQDA program. The research revealed that all leaders use Twitter’s interaction possibilities but with different intensities. We verified that they all employ a hybrid communication strategy by converging traditional media content in the Twitter platform. We establish a typology of communication strategies party leaders implement on Twitter from the obtained data. We also identify and characterise the possibilities that media interactions conducted by party leaders can assume in the Twitter arena.

Keywords : political actors; Twitter; Twitter interaction; hybrid media system.

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