What do Portuguese MPs use Twitter for?

Abstract

Portugal has the smallest Twitter adoption rate in Western Europe and a political system that doesn't incentivize direct contact with the electorate. So, what are Portuguese Members of Parliament (MPs) using Twitter for? We collected and manually coded 2.192 tweets by MPs. Our analysis reveals that MPs mostly use Twitter as a business tool to cater to a niche “Twitter Elite”. Twitter is significantly more adopted by male deputies, from small and non-conservative parties and from the largest electoral districts. While following on Twitter is impacted by public recognition, popularity is only impacted by activity on the platform.

Keywords

• Political communication
• Twitter
• Portugal
• Members of Parliament
• Social Media