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Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies
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Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 48482

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Paulo Carlos López-López

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Political Science and Sociology, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Interests: communication; social media; transparency; agenda setting; political science; political communication; open government
Dr. Daniel Barredo-Ibáñez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Journalism, University of Málaga, 29010 Málaga, Spain
Interests: journalism; online journalism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Erika Jaráiz Gulías

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Political Science and Sociology, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Interests: governance; electoral studies; political marketing; elections, public opinion and voting behavior

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The technologies applied in our digital society, especially on social media, have changed multiple factors of political communication and citizen participation. The construction of political reality is expressed, in addition to video politics, in terms such as cyber politics, which incorporates phenomena such as the acquisition of accidental information or consumption on second screens. This has special consequences both for electoral campaigns and for the strategies of political parties. In addition, citizens have more opportunities to participate and to mobilize, and this fact influences the perception of political events and democracy. Several investigations have shown that the consumption of political information via social media causes polarization and radicalization in audiences, especially in imperfect democracies.

Social media are platforms which can boost political participation, but the important thing is not the technology, but what it transmits. Political activism on the Internet is not only determined by the phases of technological development, but also by the different waves of protest: from the Seattle protests, through #MeToo, 15-M or the Arab spring. Digital activism has moved from the left to the right wing with the populist turn of the last decade. Therefore, it is indicated that ideology is less relevant than the way in which groups are built and institutionalized.

In this digital context, political communication evolves into algorithmic political communication in which computer science joins social science with various characteristics: micro-segmentation, automated content generation, new online campaign models where emotions play an important role, the rise of fake news and misinformation, or the widespread use of artificial intelligence. In this way, on the one hand, political parties are the basis of an "algorithmic democracy" with great effects on the forms of participation in the digital public space; on the other hand, the media are relevant actors to guarantee the traceability of the news as the best barrier against disinformation; and, finally, citizenship generates collective mechanisms of resistance.

The objective of this Special Issue is to analyze the types of political communication and the ways of participating in digital societies. We mainly accept systematized theoretical review articles or articles with traditional methodology (content analysis, surveys, interviews, network analysis, etc.). Submissions should focus on the following:

  • Political participation in the digital society.
  • Political communication on social media.
  • Electoral campaigns and artificial intelligence.
  • Social network movement and digital activism.
  • Affective polarization and emotions in speech.
  • Disinformation, fact-checking and false news on the Internet.
  • Digital transparency and access to public information
  • Software, big data and data mining oriented to participation.
  • Digital social media.
  • Other issues of digital societies.

Contributions must follow one of the three categories (article/review/conceptual paper) of papers for the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue. More details can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/societies/instructions.

Dr. Paulo Carlos López-López
Dr. Daniel Barredo-Ibáñez
Dr. Erika Jaráiz Gulías
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • political communication
  • political participation
  • social media
  • digital electoral campaigns
  • digital activism
  • fake news
  • digital societies

Published Papers (15 papers)

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Editorial

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5 pages, 248 KiB  
Editorial
Research on Digital Political Communication: Electoral Campaigns, Disinformation, and Artificial Intelligence
by Paulo Carlos López-López, Daniel Barredo-Ibáñez and Erika Jaráiz-Gulías
Societies 2023, 13(5), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13050126 - 15 May 2023
Viewed by 2217
Abstract
In recent years, political communication has emerged as one of the most prolific subfields within political science and the social sciences as a whole [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

18 pages, 1489 KiB  
Article
Everyday Virtuality: A Multimodal Analysis of Political Participation and Newsworthiness
by Veronica Yepez-Reyes, Patricio Cevallos, Andrea Carrillo-Andrade, Jorge Cruz-Silva, Marco López-Paredes and Alejandra González-Quincha
Societies 2023, 13(5), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13050119 - 06 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2428
Abstract
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital interactions ceased to be “just another form of communication”; indeed, they became the only means of social interaction, mediated and driven by information and communication technologies (ICTs). Consequently, working in a digital context switched from being a [...] Read more.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital interactions ceased to be “just another form of communication”; indeed, they became the only means of social interaction, mediated and driven by information and communication technologies (ICTs). Consequently, working in a digital context switched from being a phenomenon to be studied to the primary means of socializing and the primary workspace for researchers. This study explores four different methodologies to question how discursive interactions related to power and newsworthiness may be addressed in digital contexts. The multimodal approach was reviewed through the affordances of critical discourse analysis, issue ownership and salience, morphological discourse analysis, and protest event analysis. It starts by theoretically addressing concepts of multimodality and phenomenology by focusing on the implications of both perspectives. It examines publications and interactions in digital contexts in Ecuador from March 2017 to December 2020 within three political phenomena. The results of the analysis of these publications and interactions suggest that when analyzing political participation and newsworthiness, the virtual becomes a subjective space. Moreover, qualitative research is one of the primary ways to combine multimodality with other forms of discourse analysis. This paper concludes that perceptions, practices, and meanings assigned to social online representations can be better analyzed through multimodality, which tackles the intertwined characteristics of virtual discourses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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20 pages, 3022 KiB  
Article
Official Information on Twitter during the Pandemic in Spain
by Soledad García-García and Raquel Rodríguez-Díaz
Societies 2023, 13(4), 91; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13040091 - 02 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1842
Abstract
This article shows the use of Twitter that the main official spokespersons of the Spanish government made during the first weeks of the pandemic, with the aim of analyzing how government health campaigns were managed during the exceptional period of the state of [...] Read more.
This article shows the use of Twitter that the main official spokespersons of the Spanish government made during the first weeks of the pandemic, with the aim of analyzing how government health campaigns were managed during the exceptional period of the state of alarm to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and whether the instructions in terms of institutional management of communication to combat the infodemic set by the World Health Organization (WHO) were followed. This research considers the diffusion of official information in different phases of the first three months of the government’s action (102 days) from the outbreak of COVID-19 in Spain (March 2020) and how it developed its approach to crisis communication using the Twitter accounts of the President of the Spanish government (@sanchezcastejon), front-line leaders and the Ministry of Health (@sanidadgob), the main public institution responsible for health crisis management with the hashtags #EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos and #COVID-19. The results of a sample of 750 tweets reveal how the official sources used a model of online communication with a particular emphasis on informative and motivational tweets from leaders aimed at audiences (media and the general public). At the same time, there is also an instructive function about the pandemic towards audiences (general public and companies), with the Ministry and health authorities playing a key, proactive role in an attempt to achieve informative transparency to mitigate the pandemic and infodemic. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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13 pages, 1162 KiB  
Article
Disinformation and Verification in a Digital Society: An Analysis of Strategies and Policies Applied in the European Regional TV Broadcasters of the CIRCOM Network
by Jose Rúas-Araújo, Talia Rodríguez-Martelo and Julia Fontenla-Pedreira
Societies 2023, 13(4), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13040081 - 27 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1425
Abstract
The recent COVID-19 health crisis has shone a spotlight on disinformation as the circulation of false information became more and more prominent. What the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined as an ‘infodemic’ poses a great risk for democracies and for society in [...] Read more.
The recent COVID-19 health crisis has shone a spotlight on disinformation as the circulation of false information became more and more prominent. What the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined as an ‘infodemic’ poses a great risk for democracies and for society in general. In this context, public television channels, with their regional scope, actively participate in the fight against misinformation. This research aims to identify and classify the different verification initiatives and technological tools, as well as the different strategies and codes used in fact-checking tasks by European broadcasters belonging to the CIRCOM network. The methodology undertakes an exploratory approach and employs a questionnaire that is applied to a sample of the members of the network. Managers and professionals with executive profiles were asked about the management, operation and strategies used in the verification process. In light of the results obtained, it can be concluded that the current verification processes are based on human efforts, rather than technological tools, amounting to a total dependence on content curation by the writing teams in the newsroom. Thus, it is evidenced that in most cases, there is neither a specific department for verification, nor sufficient resources, despite the fact that all those surveyed regard disinformation as a priority issue, a threat to democratic integrity and a responsibility of public service media. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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12 pages, 1962 KiB  
Article
Digital Habits of Users in the Post-Pandemic Context: A Study on the Transition of Mexican Internet and Media Users from the Monterrey Metropolitan Area
by Daniel Javier de la Garza Montemayor, Daniel Barredo Ibáñez and Mayra Elizabeth Brosig Rodríguez
Societies 2023, 13(3), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030072 - 16 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1862
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the transformation of digital interactions, a development that has been growing in the last decade. Digital platforms have become indispensable in the institutional communication of public and private organizations. The magnitude of this change was evident during the pandemic [...] Read more.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the transformation of digital interactions, a development that has been growing in the last decade. Digital platforms have become indispensable in the institutional communication of public and private organizations. The magnitude of this change was evident during the pandemic at a time when several countries implemented social distancing measures to contain the contagion. This situation caused a certain degree of user dependence on information and communication technologies. The objective of this research is to analyze the time of use, the changes, and habits of digital consumption at the beginning and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. Access to both social networks and digital entertainment platforms was examined during the period in which Internet users had resumed a large part of face-to-face activities, and 1500 questionnaires were conducted considering the current data of the population of the urban area according to what was reported by the INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography). The results indicate that after COVID-19, a digital transformation was accelerated, and, in that period, social media helped to build trust according to the users consulted in the Monterrey metropolitan area. However, trust was given at an interpersonal level due to motivations such as the prior user relationships in offline spaces and not so much because of the institutional campaigns that were behind the digital transformation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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15 pages, 311 KiB  
Article
Use of Twitter during Televised Election Debates: Spanish General Election (28 April 2019) vs. French General Election (24 April 2022)
by Julia Fontenla-Pedreira, Carmen Maiz-Bar and Talia Rodríguez-Martelo
Societies 2023, 13(3), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030070 - 14 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1356
Abstract
Social media have become key in political communication, playing a crucial role in election campaigns due to their fast, ubiquitous communication. This paper focuses on the comparison of the use of the social network Twitter in Spanish and French public and commercial television [...] Read more.
Social media have become key in political communication, playing a crucial role in election campaigns due to their fast, ubiquitous communication. This paper focuses on the comparison of the use of the social network Twitter in Spanish and French public and commercial television stations, during the last televised debates held during their general elections (2019 and 2022). It seeks to find whether conversation and interaction with their audiences take place, and whether these meet the dialogic principles set forth by Kent and Taylor adapted to Twitter by Ribalko and Seltzer to include usefulness of information, generation of return visits and dialogic loop preservation. To do this, the content of the general Twitter profiles of two French television stations, together with their profiles focused on informative content, were analyzed before, during and after the televised election debate held on 20 April. Likewise, the Twitter profiles corresponding to two Spanish television stations, together with the profiles corresponding to their news programs, were studied before, during and after the televised election debates held on 22 and 23 April. After screening all their posts, those referring to the debate and generating the largest engagement figures were selected, in order to compare the topics covered in the televised debates with those covered in Twitter. The results reveal that the information-focused accounts originate more posts whose content is linked to the televised debates, in contrast with the general accounts. Furthermore, both the unidirectionality of their content, and the lack of dialogue and interaction between these accounts and their audiences, become apparent, in addition to the minimal occurrence of “debate about the debate” flow among users. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
18 pages, 2086 KiB  
Article
Political Disaffection and Digital Political Participation in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of the Period 2008–2020
by Ángel Cazorla-Martín, Juan Montabes-Pereira and Mateo Javier Hernández-Tristán
Societies 2023, 13(3), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030059 - 05 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2094
Abstract
One of the issues facing the field of political behaviour analysis in recent years has been the transformation of political participation among citizens, in a context of increasing change, profoundly marked by the spread of a new digital paradigm. Network society has brought [...] Read more.
One of the issues facing the field of political behaviour analysis in recent years has been the transformation of political participation among citizens, in a context of increasing change, profoundly marked by the spread of a new digital paradigm. Network society has brought with it new forms of political participation, where different types of participatory citizenship coexist in a process of increasing interaction which, in turn, creates new morphologies, and where online and offline modes are reciprocal, generating new patterns of behaviour. Of these different types of participatory citizenship, that of the disaffected is perhaps among the most important in recent years and, in particular, since the start of the so-called “Great Recession” around 2008, and the subsequent global COVID-19 crisis. This recent context can be characterised by a significant increase in political disaffection, resulting from a loss of trust in institutions and from the constant distancing of a certain section of the citizenry from politics as a coded punishment of those governments and institutions they see as ineffective. This paper provides an analysis of citizenship types in Latin America, particularly that of the disaffected, describing their relationship to the following of political information through digital media and social networks, and identifying patterns of evolution and development in some of the trends. Results show that a clear distinction exists between the different types of citizenship and associated forms of participation, both online and offline, while also describing differences in both political perceptions and attitudes, and between areas or regions in Latin America. Likewise, important differences are found according to citizen type in relation to the following of different social networks, especially among citizens categorised as critical or disaffected. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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20 pages, 317 KiB  
Article
Populism on the Web: Presidential Elections in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia (2020–2022)
by Maria-Ines Quevedo-Stuva, Gloria Tovar-Gil and Andrea Mila-Maldonado
Societies 2023, 13(3), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030058 - 05 Mar 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2174
Abstract
Populism has become one of the main features of political action worldwide. This research aims to characterize the populist discourse in the tweets of presidential candidates in the Andean Community in recent elections (2020–2022). Accordingly, we analyze the characteristics of their social network [...] Read more.
Populism has become one of the main features of political action worldwide. This research aims to characterize the populist discourse in the tweets of presidential candidates in the Andean Community in recent elections (2020–2022). Accordingly, we analyze the characteristics of their social network profiles, as well as the content and latent discourse of their tweets. We demonstrate that the differences and similarities of their discourse go beyond their right and left association. The differences result from how they construct their identity and establish their relationship with their electorate. Our analysis reveals that this type of discourse is ideological as well as performative. It is ideological because, in the candidates’ discourse, they recontextualize the actual meanings of “us” and “them”. It is performative because it is carried out by a charismatic leader who acts in a specific way to define himself or herself as the embodiment of “the people” and “the good”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
15 pages, 1372 KiB  
Article
Tenders for Institutional Communication Campaigns in the Spanish Autonomous Communities: Transparency or Digital Disinformation
by Montserrat Vázquez-Gestal, Jesús Pérez-Seoane and Ana Belén Fernández-Souto
Societies 2023, 13(3), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030052 - 24 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1204
Abstract
With an investment of over 700 million euros, the public sector is the main advertiser in the Spanish market. Altogether, the central, regional, and local governments launch more than 5000 institutional advertising and communication contracts. In Spain, these tenders are governed by Law [...] Read more.
With an investment of over 700 million euros, the public sector is the main advertiser in the Spanish market. Altogether, the central, regional, and local governments launch more than 5000 institutional advertising and communication contracts. In Spain, these tenders are governed by Law 9/2017 on Public Sector Contracts and Law 19/2013 on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance, in compliance with which governments have developed openly accessible websites that provide practical information on the contracts for interested individuals and companies. This paper compares all regional procurement platforms through the study of a hundred institutional communication public contracts launched in 2021, assessing the usefulness of the published content, detecting good practices, and identifying gaps and areas of improvement. The results obtained support the idea that these platforms do not provide exhaustive information on public contracts, which limits their potential as tools aimed at ensuring competition and transparency in public contracts. Based on this last criterion, a ranking is created among the regions analysed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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15 pages, 1483 KiB  
Article
Communication of Results of Educational Policies: Impact Levels of Educational Policies in the Digital Society
by Javier Vega-Ramírez, Paola Castro-Duarte and Claudia Quintana-Figueroa
Societies 2023, 13(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13020034 - 31 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1186
Abstract
The levels of adherence to results in the implementation of public policies within educational communities can vary greatly depending on several factors: program coverage, funding level, the level of understanding of program goals, the duration of implementation, and the dissemination of results. In [...] Read more.
The levels of adherence to results in the implementation of public policies within educational communities can vary greatly depending on several factors: program coverage, funding level, the level of understanding of program goals, the duration of implementation, and the dissemination of results. In today’s digital society, the most relevant factor is precisely the communication of results, even when the way in which these are reached is overlooked. As a result, non-causal, high-impact relationships are installed in the collective consciousness. This article presents the results of a study that aims to measure the level of impact of the implementation of a public policy developed over two years in educational establishments in the Los Ríos Region of Chile, and it looks into the level of adherence to results three years after its implementation. The results explain that the differentiating factor is the type of dissemination of results, in direct correlation to the digital media used and the digital culture of the establishment, which allows to previously project the conditions of possibility for a type of adherence, even though we need larger scale measurements to determine with certainty this point of causality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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17 pages, 1084 KiB  
Article
Let’s Play Democracy, Exploratory Analysis of Political Video Games
by Angel Torres-Toukoumidis, Isidro Marín Gutiérrez, Mónica Hinojosa Becerra, Tatiana León-Alberca and Concha Pérez Curiel
Societies 2023, 13(2), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13020028 - 28 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2763
Abstract
In current times, the concept of democracy has been transformed due to the ups and downs of the hyperdigitalized society, modifying its discourses and forms of participation. Recognizing that video games maintain a prominent role in the new generations, this research has the [...] Read more.
In current times, the concept of democracy has been transformed due to the ups and downs of the hyperdigitalized society, modifying its discourses and forms of participation. Recognizing that video games maintain a prominent role in the new generations, this research has the objective of analyzing independent video games related to the notion of democracy. For this reason, 26 video games were analyzed according to their democratic principles, their typology and their key components, resulting in a tendency towards the guarantee of civil liberties, political pluralism and separation of powers; likewise, there is a clear differentiation between persuasive and expressive video games, the former linked to polarization and criticism, while the latter responded to a reflexive conceptual line, added to the use of reward systems and progression in their key design components. It can be concluded that video games linked to democracy respond to an innovative interactive dimension that converts the traditional political canons by the creativity, freedom, and autonomy of the current audiences. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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14 pages, 4063 KiB  
Article
On Politics and Pandemic: How Do Chilean Media Talk about Disinformation and Fake News in Their Social Networks?
by Luis Cárcamo-Ulloa, Camila Cárdenas-Neira, Eliana Scheihing-García, Diego Sáez-Trumper, Matthieu Vernier and Carlos Blaña-Romero
Societies 2023, 13(2), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13020025 - 26 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3319
Abstract
Citizens get informed, on a daily basis, from social networks in general and from the media in particular. Accordingly, the media are increasingly expressing their concern about phenomena related to disinformation. This article presents an analysis of the social networks of 159 Chilean [...] Read more.
Citizens get informed, on a daily basis, from social networks in general and from the media in particular. Accordingly, the media are increasingly expressing their concern about phenomena related to disinformation. This article presents an analysis of the social networks of 159 Chilean media that, over 5 years, referred to fake news or disinformation on 10,699 occasions. Based on data science strategies, the Queltehue platform was programmed to systematically track the information posted by 159 media on their social networks (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). The universe of data obtained (13 million news items) was filtered with a specific query to reach 10,699 relevant posts, which underwent textual computer analysis (LDA) complemented with manual strategies of multimodal discourse analysis (MDA). Among the findings, it is revealed that the recurrent themes over the years have mostly referred to fake news and politics and fake news related to health issues. This is widely explained on the grounds of a political period in Chile which involved at least five electoral processes, in addition to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding the multimodal analysis, it is observed that when the dissemination of fake news involves well-known figures such as politicians or government authorities, an image or a video in which such figure appears is used. In these cases, two phenomena occur: (a) these figures have the opportunity to rectify their false or misinforming statements or (b) in most cases, their statements are reiterated and end up reinforcing the controversy. In view of these results, it seems necessary to ask whether this is all that can be done and whether this is enough that communication can do to guarantee healthy and democratic societies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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17 pages, 3222 KiB  
Article
Cultural Tourism in a Post-COVID-19 Scenario: The French Way of Saint James in Spain from the Perspective of Promotional Communication
by Clide Rodríguez-Vázquez, Pablo Castellanos-García and Valentín Alejandro Martínez-Fernández
Societies 2023, 13(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13010016 - 07 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2180
Abstract
Tourism has been one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the side effects of the pandemic is the demand for safe and quiet spaces, giving rise to the search for a new lifestyle, “slow living”, which could represent [...] Read more.
Tourism has been one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the side effects of the pandemic is the demand for safe and quiet spaces, giving rise to the search for a new lifestyle, “slow living”, which could represent an opportunity for cultural tourism. In this context, the main objective of this article is twofold: (i) to establish the relevance of cultural tourism for residents in Spain for the autonomous communities along the French Way of Saint James and (ii) to determine their behaviour on their institutional tourism promotion websites. For our analysis, we use equality of means tests and ANOVA (for data from 2002–2020), as well as measures of positioning, engagement, origin of the audience and access devices (for data from 2020–2021). The main conclusion is that the Way of St. James does not act as a driving force for cultural tourism, even though the websites of tourism promotion organisations have experienced a remarkable growth in their use. This article develops an original relation of cultural tourism through an analysis of the French Way of St. James in Spain and the web positioning of official tourism promotion organisations before and during COVID-19. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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13 pages, 1715 KiB  
Article
Telegram Channels and Bots: A Ranking of Media Outlets Based in Spain
by Victor Herrero-Solana and Carlos Castro-Castro
Societies 2022, 12(6), 164; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12060164 - 18 Nov 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 17100
Abstract
Telegram, an Industry 4.0 style communication service, is one of the world’s most widespread communication platforms. The availability of channels and bots has opened as a broadcast channel for any media outlet. We asked the following questions: Do media outlets from Spain use [...] Read more.
Telegram, an Industry 4.0 style communication service, is one of the world’s most widespread communication platforms. The availability of channels and bots has opened as a broadcast channel for any media outlet. We asked the following questions: Do media outlets from Spain use Telegram channels? Which media outlets? Are they verified? What is their volume of subscribers? Can this information be used to rank media outlets? We identified many media channels and data were collected from each one. We present the results in a ranking. Forty-two media based in Spain have Telegram channels, 26 of which are ranked in the directory. Less than half of these channels are verified by the platform, and only three are linked to their website. This lack of verification could lead to the proliferation of fake channels. The article ends with a series of recommendations for channel managers to make it easier for the end user to identify and verify each media outlet. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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14 pages, 1861 KiB  
Article
Facing Conspiracies: Biden’s Counter-Speech to Trumpist Messages in the Framework of the 2020 US Elections
by Concha Pérez-Curiel, Rubén Rivas-de-Roca and Ricardo Domínguez-García
Societies 2022, 12(5), 134; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12050134 - 22 Sep 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2114
Abstract
The climate of division and polarization in the US politics is increasing, going beyond the time in the office of a specific leader. Several political or technological challenges have ended up eroding this trust, making social cohesion difficult. In this context, this research [...] Read more.
The climate of division and polarization in the US politics is increasing, going beyond the time in the office of a specific leader. Several political or technological challenges have ended up eroding this trust, making social cohesion difficult. In this context, this research examines the communication strategies of the elected president Biden after the 2020 elections, shedding light on how his legitimacy was built. All the messages that the Democrat published on his personal Twitter account (@JoeBiden) were collected, from the day after the presidential elections (4 November 2020) until his inauguration as president of the United States (20 January 2021). Using a content analysis method on issue/game frame and dissemination of the messages (n = 379), and an analysis of the 100 first keywords, results showed a plan of the Democratic candidate to reinforce the role of public institutions but without interaction with the polarized electorate. In this sense, the strategies of the president-elect related to the promotion of political action, the call for unity, and the fight against the pandemic stood out. The frequent use of words with a positive attitude reveals how Biden avoided confrontation with Donald Trump. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Political Communication and Public Political Participation in the Digital Societies)
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