Parties, pirates and politicians: The 2014 European Parliamentary elections on Czech Twitter

Abstract

The ongoing expansion of new communication technologies is inseparably linked to the transformation of political communication. The new thinking behind communication is embedded directly in the code of popular social networks. Can a formal political party successfully implement a decentralized mode of communication based on personal connections and weak social ties, or is it against the very logic of both the hierarchical organizations and the technology itself? Our case study describes the vast spectrum of various types of behavior of political actors on Twitter through computer-assisted analysis of Twitter communication in Czech Republic before the elections to the European Parliament in May 2014. The research is based on the concept of connective action, as defined by Bennett and Segerberg. Preliminary results show an emerging typology of campaign strategies, from formal and centralized campaigns on one hand to various hybrid overlaps of traditional and new forms of communication on the other.