Race for attention: Twitter campaign of Italian party leaders before the 2018 parliamentary elections

Authors

  • Lili Takács National University of Public Service (Hungary, Budapest)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5752/P.1809-6182.2021v18n2p26-35

Keywords:

Italy, Parliamentary elections, Campaign, Twitter, Political communication

Abstract

The 2018 Italian Parliamentary elections marked the success of populist parties. With the consolidation of hybrid media campaigning Twitter became a growingly important communication channel for party leaders. When analysing the Twitter communication from 1 February 2018 to 4 March 2018 (day of the elections) Matteo Salvini and Matteo Renzi dominated the campaign in the Twittersphere. Other party leaders didn’t used Twitter as skilfully as these two politicians, their engagement indicators are less lower than that 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, overall his communication indicators were good, his party suffered a historical loss at the elections.

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Published

2022-12-26

How to Cite

Takács, L. (2022). Race for attention: Twitter campaign of Italian party leaders before the 2018 parliamentary elections. Conjuntura Internacional, 18(2), 26–35. https://doi.org/10.5752/P.1809-6182.2021v18n2p26-35