Abstract
In this chapter the political implications of social media and their affordances for political discourse are examined. The focus is on candidates’ Twitter usage during the 2014 EU elections in France and in Germany. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of tweets collected during a period of four weeks have been carried out on the basis of the functional operator model of Twitter. The model serves as a framework for assessing users’ tweeting styles, which can range between personal-interactive and topical-informative. The comparison of French and German top candidates’ tweeting styles, which mainly appear to be „personal-interactive“, however questions the candidates’ alleged efforts to enter into dialogue with their voters.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Altheide, D. L., & Snow, R. P. (1979). Media logic. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Baym, N. (2010). Personal connections in the digital age. Chichester: Polity Press.
Bode, L., Vraga, E. K., Borah, P., & Shah, D. V. (2014). A new space for political behavior: Political social networking and its democratic consequences. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19, 414-429.
Bohman, J. (2004). Expanding dialogue: The Internet, public sphere, and transnational democracy. In P. M. Shane (Ed.), Democracy online (pp. 47–61). New York: Routledge.
Bor, S. E. (2013). Democratic deliberation on social network sites: A study of digital deliberative discourse in the 2012 election. Dissertation. The University of Utah. http://content.lib.utah. edu/utils/getfile/collection/etd3/id/2191/filename/2193.pdf. Accessed March 24, 2015.
Boyd, D., Golder, S., & Lotan, G. (2010). Tweet tweet retweet: Conversational aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. Proceedings of HICSS-43.Kauai, HI January 5-8. http://www.danah.org/papers/TweetTweetRetweet.pdf. Accessed: May 5, 2015.
Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2011). The use of Twitter hashtags in the formation of ad hoc publics. Paper presented at the 6th European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, 25–27 August 2011, University of Iceland, Reykjavik. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/46515/. Accessed March 13, 2015.
Dang-Anh, M., Einspänner, J., & Thimm, C. (2013). Kontextualisierung durch Hashtags. Die Mediatisierung des politischen Sprachgebrauchs im Internet. In H. Diekmannshenke & T. Niehr (eds.), Öffentliche Wörter. Analysen zum öffentlich-medialen Sprachgebrauch. Perspektiven Germanistischer Linguistik (pp. 137–159). Stuttgart: Ibidem.
Delli Carpini, M. X., Cook, F. L., & Jacobs, L. R. (2004). Public deliberations, discursive participation and citizen engagement: A review of the empirical literature. Annual Review of Political Science 7, 315–344.
Fenton, N., & Barassi, V. (2011). Alternative media and social networking sites: The politics of individuation and political participation. The Communication Review 14(3), 179–196.
Frame, A., & Brachotte, G. (2015). Le Tweet stratégique: Use of Twitter as a PR tool by French politicians. Public Relations Review, 41 (Special Issue: New Digital Publics).
Frame, A., & Brachotte, G. (Eds.) (in press). Citizen participation and political communication in a digital world. New York: Routledge.
Fuchs, C. (2013). Social media. A critical introduction. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Fuchs, M., & Laumen, A. (2014). #EP2014: Europawahlkampf im Netz. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (APuZ) 64, (12), 42-46. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.
Kim, M. & Woo, H. (2012). Measuring Twitter-based political participation and deliberation in the South Korean context by using social network and Triple Helix indicators. Scientometrics 90, 121-140.
Maireder, A., & Schlögl, S. (2014). 24 hours of an #outcry: The networked publics of a socio-political debate. European Journal of Communication 29, 687–702. doi: 10.1177/0267323114545710
Marichal, J. (2010). Political Facebook groups: Micro-activism and the digital front stage. Paper presented at the Internet, Politics, Policy 2010: An Impact Assessment. http://ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/sites/ipp/files/documents/IPP2010_Marichal_Paper.pdf. Accessed: May 5, 2015.
Morozov, E. (2009). Iran: Downside to the “Twitter Revolution”. Dissent 56 (4), 10–14.
Pew Research Center (2014). The EU elections on Twitter. Mixed views about the EU and little passion for the candidates. http://www.journalism.org/2014/05/22/the-eu-electionson-twitter/. Accessed: Mai 5, 2015.
Small, T. A. (2010). La politique canadienne en 140 caractères: la vie des partis dans l’univers Twitter. Revue parlementaire canadienne, 33(3), 41–48.
Thimm, C., Anastasiadis, M., Bürger, T., & Einspänner, J. (2014). #Gewählen: Die Bundestagswahl online – Twitter im politischen Diskurs. Bonn: Bonner Akademie für Forschung und Lehre praktischer Politik.
Thimm, C., Einspänner, J., & Dang-Anh, M. (2012a). Politische Deliberation online. Twitter als Element des politischen Diskurses. In A. Hepp & F. Krotz (Eds.), Mediatisierte
Welten: Beschreibungsansätze und Forschungsfelder (pp. 283-307). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Thimm, C., Einspänner, J., & Dang-Anh, M. (2012b). Twitter als Wahlkampfmedium. Publizistik 57, 293–313.
Thimm, C., Dang-Anh, M., & Einspänner, J (2014). Mediatized politics – structures and strategies of discursive participation and online deliberation on Twitter. In F. Krotz & A. Hepp (Eds.), Mediatized worlds: Culture and society in a media age (pp. 253–269). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Vergeer, M., & Hermans, L. (2013). Campaigning on Twitter: Microblogging and online social networking as campaign tools in the 2010 general elections in the Netherlands. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 18, 399–419. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12023.
Vicari, S. (2012). Twitter and public reasoning around social contention: The case of #15ott in Italy. In B. Tejerina & I. Perugorria (Eds.), From social to political: New forms of mobilization and democratization (pp. 277–292). Conference Proceedings, Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bilbao.
Wimmer, J. (2012). Partizipation und Protestkulturen in Zeiten der Digitalisierung und Mediatisierung. Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Betrachtung. Communication Socialis 45, 221-225.
Zappavigna, M. (2012). Discourse of Twitter and social media: How we use language to create affiliation on the web. London: Continuum.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thimm, C., Frame, A., Einspänner-Pflock, J., Leclercq, E., Anastasiadis, M. (2016). The EU-Election on Twitter: Comparison of German and French Candidates’ Tweeting styles. In: Holtz-Bacha, C. (eds) Europawahlkampf 2014 . Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-11020-8_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-11020-8_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-11019-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-11020-8
eBook Packages: Social Science and Law (German Language)