Communicative differences between emergent and traditional parties: an analysis of facebook posts from spain's 2015 general election campaign

Social media has revolutionized political communication. It offers political parties a mass communication channel that lets them customize and create direct communication with citizens. This study analyses the posts of the main Spanish political parties on their Facebook pages during the 2015 general elections campaign. We quantitatively analyse the parties' frequency of publication on this social network and the content of their messages through a computerized content analysis. The results indicate that traditional and emergent parties manage their Facebook pages in distinct ways.