<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The objective of this study is to contribute knowledge about formation of political agendas on Twitter during mediated political events, using the party leaders’ debates in Sweden before the general election of 2014 as a case study. Our findings show that issues brought up during the debates were largely mirrored on Twitter, with one striking discrepancy. Contrary to our expectations, issues on the left-right policy dimension were more salient on Twitter than in the debates, whereas issues such as the environment, immigration and refugees, all tied to a liberal-authoritarian value axis, were less salient on Twitter.</p></abstract>

The objective of this study is to contribute knowledge about formation of political agendas on Twitter during mediated political events, using the party leaders’ debates in Sweden before the general election of 2014 as a case study. Our findings show that issues brought up during the debates were largely mirrored on Twitter, with one striking discrepancy. Contrary to our expectations, issues on the left-right policy dimension were more salient on Twitter than in the debates, whereas issues such as the environment, immigration and refugees, all tied to a liberal-authoritarian value axis, were less salient on Twitter.

Issue Salience on Twitter During Swedish Party Leaders’ Debates

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"Issue Salience on Twitter During Swedish Party Leaders\u2019 Debates"}

The objective of this study is to contribute knowledge about formation of political agendas on Twitter during mediated political events, using the party...

Issue Salience on Twitter During Swedish Party Leaders’ Debates

Published Online: Oct 11, 2019

Page range: 49 - 61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2019-0033

Keywords
issue salience, social media, Twitter, party leaders’ debates, policy dimensions

© 2019 Sandberg, L.A.C., Bjereld, U., Bunyik, K., Forsberg, M. & Johansson, R., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Issue Salience on Twitter During Swedish Party Leaders’ Debates

Published Online: Oct 11, 2019

Page range: 49 - 61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2019-0033

Keywordsissue salience, social media, Twitter, party leaders’ debates, policy dimensions

© 2019 Sandberg, L.A.C., Bjereld, U., Bunyik, K., Forsberg, M. & Johansson, R., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
issue salience, social media, Twitter, party leaders’ debates, policy dimensions