Title: Mapping the agenda-setting theory, priming and the spiral of silence in Twitter accounts of political parties

Authors: Marc Blasco-Duatis; Germà Coenders; Marc Saez; Nuria Fernández García; Isabel Ferin Cunha

Addresses: Research Group on Statistics, Econometrics and Health (GRECS), University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain ' CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Research Group on Statistics, Econometrics and Health (GRECS), University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain ' CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain; Research Group on Statistics, Econometrics and Health (GRECS), University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain ' Department of Journalism and Communication Studies, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Barcelona, Spain ' Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra (UC), Coimbra, Portugal

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a content analysis of the official Twitter accounts of the main Spanish political parties (Partido Popular, Partido Socialista Obrero Español, Podemos, Ciudadanos and Izquierda Unida) carried out for the period of the 2015 Spanish general election. Compositional biplots are used for data visualisation. Unlike traditional approaches, compositional analysis in general, and the biplot in particular, emphasise the relative salience of issues within the agenda. This analysis sheds light on the agenda-setting theory and closely-related phenomena such as priming (based on associative-activation among a group of issues that are more influential than others) and the spiral of silence (the issues derived from the hierarchy process of agenda-setting that are omitted just after the election day).

Keywords: agenda-setting; biplot; compositional data; CoDa; political communication; priming; spiral of silence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2019.098696

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2019 Vol.15 No.1, pp.4 - 24

Received: 13 Jun 2018
Accepted: 12 Sep 2018
Published online: 29 Mar 2019 *

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