The aim was to analyze tweets
on the 2014 European Elections
so that we could see what was being talked about.
On the one hand, we have analyzed the tweet structure,
On the other hand, the contents, and how they spread
to see which users were the most retweeted.
The most popular tweets are usually the ones attaching images.
Those are the most retweeted ones, it doesn't matter the structure they have.
But also the most retweeted ones
are the ones from candidates or parties.
Particularly because they have a greater audience
and people are paying attention to what they say.
We have detected two types of conversation.
One of them is more focused on
political marketing
and tweets are including campaign hashtags
or they mention candidates by their user names.
And then a much more opened conversation
that mentions users by their user names
or talks about TV debates with candidates.
Then the language they use is much more colloquial.
So there are two different kinds of conversation.
On the one hand, there is the campaign itself aimed for citizens,
and then, citizens themselves talking about the elections.
And those two layers didn't seem to interact.
First of all, both candidates and parties
should listen to people.
I think that they could learn a lot,
just by reading what is being said on the internet.
There are sharp messages, funny ones
and there is also opinion.
It is interesting to get to know what is being said on the street.
To get to know first hand what citizens think.
Twitter users
are just a fraction of society.
They tend to be young and there are more men than women.
So it is not a real representation.
But you get a taste of the future segment
of people, voters,
the ones that are voting for the first time,
very young people,
and what they think about politics and parties.