The 2016 Republican primary campaign on Twitter: Issues and ideological positioning for the profiles of Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump

Authors

  • Marí­a Galán-Garcí­a El profesional de la información

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2017.sep.07

Keywords:

Twitter, Ideology, United States, Republican Party, Primaries, 2016 elections, Political communication, Electoral campaign.

Abstract

Las primarias republicanas de 2016, marcadas por las intervenciones de Trump y las confrontaciones dialécticas entre los contendientes, quedaron reflejadas en Twitter. La red social se convirtió en el espacio donde los candidatos pudieron expresar sus puntos de vista y compartir con sus potenciales votantes tanto sus preocupaciones como las cuestiones sobre las que pivotarí­a su programa electoral si resultaban elegidos. Este trabajo analiza los tweets publicados por los cuatro candidatos mejor posicionados en las encuestas de Iowa (Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio y Donald Trump), cuyo caucus marca el comienzo de las primarias y suele funcionar como medidor fiable de lo que va a ser la carrera presidencial, en los meses previos al inicio del proceso y examina los puntos sobre los que sustentaron sus campañas y las lí­neas que trazaron sobre temas clave para el electorado republicano, entre otras cuestiones. Los resultados introducen algunas de las principales promesas con las que el ganador de las primarias convenció a los votantes estadounidenses para alcanzar la Presidencia.

 

Abstract

The 2016 Republican primaries, marked by Trump´s controversial remarks and the dialectical confrontations between contenders, were mirrored on Twitter. This social network became the arena in which the candidates were able to express their views on different aspects and share with their potential voters both their concerns and the issues that would be the core of their electoral program if they were elected as the republican nominee. This paper analyzes the tweets published by the four best positioned candidates in the Iowa polls (Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump), whose Caucus marks the beginning of the presidential primaries and whose results usually indicate how the presidential race is going to evolve, in the months prior to the beginning of the process and examines the main elements on which their respective campaigns were based and the ideological lines traced by each one on key issues for the Republican electorate, among other issues. The results introduce some of the electoral promises with which the winner of the primaries convinced the US voters to reach the Presidency.

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Published

2017-09-14

How to Cite

Galán-Garcí­a, M. (2017). The 2016 Republican primary campaign on Twitter: Issues and ideological positioning for the profiles of Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump. Profesional De La información, 26(5), 850–858. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2017.sep.07