Twitter, Presidential Debates and Attention Economy: A Symbiosis between Television Audience and Social Media Users during Campaign Season

• Published in: Communication & Society 2020-06, Vol.33 (3), p.51-65
• Main Authors: Santander, Pedro, Elórtegui, Claudio, Buzzo, Camila
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Attention; Audiences; Big Data; Broadcasting; Broadcasting industry; Campaigns; Candidates; Communication; Computer platforms; Consumption; Debates; digital attention; Digital technology; double screen; Election results; Elections; Electoral campaign; Intelligence; Interdisciplinary aspects; Mass media; Presidential candidates; presidential debates; Presidential elections; Radio; Radios; Seasons; Social media; Social networks; Symbiosis; Television; television and radio; Television programs; Television viewing; Volumetric analysis; Voting
• ISSN: 2386-7876; 2386-7876
• DOI: 10.15581/003.33.3.51-65

The year 2017 was an intense electoral year in Chile, both parliamentary and presidential. In this context, by using computer intelligence, an interdisciplinary team conducted a collection and volumetric analysis of over 3 million Twitter messages belonging to users that mentioned, at least once, any of the presidential candidates, both in the first and second voting round. Our goal was focused on analyzing the relationship between traditional media (radio and television) and Twitter, probing user interactions during the broadcast of live political shows, with emphasis on presidential debates. For this purpose, we carried out a volumetric analysis of all mentions in social media during the broadcast of live political shows to characterize the digital attention of the audience, under different parameters. Our results show that there is high user interest in the digital debate regarding presidential debates, a positive correlation between traditional media and Twitter during the broadcast of live political shows, and that, also, the latter trigger social media; furthermore, we verify the double screen phenomenon made possible by mobile platforms.