A new publication by Rosa Borge, leader of the CNSC group–Trànsic Centre, and Joan Balcells and Albert Padró-Solanet, members of the DIGIT Centre research centre, entitled “A distorted mirror? Party cohesion in political parties’ Twitterspheres“, a question we have attempted to answer in this article, recently published in the journal Acta Política.
The research is based on the study of follower networks (following-follower) and information dissemination (retweets) formed by a sample of more than 4,000 accounts related to the main Spanish political parties (PP, PSOE, Podemos, Cs and VOX) on the social network X (Twitter). The sample encompasses different layers and strata of the various parties, from the ruling elites to supporters and grassroots activists between 2021 and 2023. The period of analysis coincides with various regional elections (Madrid, Castile and León, and Andalusia) and with the collapse of Ciutadans (Cs) as a political party. The sample design revealed differences in the composition of the partisan Twitter spheres, with the older parties (PP and PSOE) having a greater presence of officials, especially at the intermediate level, while the newer parties (such as Podemos and Vox) have a greater presence of supporters.
The findings of the article show how Cs, after a series of poor election results, is the party with the greatest difficulties in maintaining its internal cohesion on social media. The Cs party sphere is experiencing a loss of followers among its grassroots; some party members have stopped following each other and the network is becoming less efficient at transmitting information.
For a more detailed commentary on the article, see the blog of law and political science studies.