Politics 2.0: The Use of Social Networks in Argentinean Politics

Abstract

This article is part of a doctoral thesis that analyzes the political use of the communication 2.0, specifically of Facebook and Twitter. The political agent chosen is the President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the pre electoral period of the first Simultaneous Open and Compulsory Primary. It is important to mention that she is the first Argentinean president to use the social networks with electoral purposes in pursuit of her reelection, given that the development of these communicational tools is recent and previous presidents did not count with them. In order to analyze the use of social networks by the President in a pre-election period, political discourse was analyzed and compared the treatment of electoral information of three traditional mass media-La Nacion, Clarin and Página/12- and the political material, or management review published, shared and retweeted by the political agent chosen. The study found that the agent used its social networking times during the period. The electoral messages aimed to list the qualities of his first management through specific government measures without making campaign promises. Meanwhile, the media published a significant amount of notes linked to the President but was tiny references to electoral publications on social networks.