68 | nº 28, pp. 55-77 | doxa.comunicación

January-June of 2019

The use of Social Networks as a means of citizen participation in validating positions and interests...

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

Figure 10. Meeting with Trump at the White House

Source:https://www.facebook.com/54212446406/photos/a.10155722065831407/10155722066241407/?type=3

For this post, 4,500 reactions were counted; a sampling was carried out according to the established methodology and reactions to the actions that Rajoy is reporting are mostly negative; Despite being an attempt to approach a world power, rather than apparently showing a strong rejection of the meeting, network users seem to be demonstrating dissatisfaction with Rajoy instead; it is important to remember that at the time the crisis of Catalonia was very much at hand, and that precisely a month later the situation would explode with a declaration of independence. Even at that time, this was considered the worst crisis of Rajoy’s government. Consequently, from the content analysis one might think that for the Spanish president it would be very important to find acceptance for his actions, even more so when it involved a meeting with the president of an extremely powerful nation. Of the total number of reactions of the sample (95), 94% (83) were of dissatisfaction and even mockery. They did not consider that the meeting produced results, and the government was criticized in different ways. For example, it was criticized for its weapons business with the United States and for not addressing the issue of Catalonia. It is clear that the Internet was used to communicate the rejection of President Rajoy directly.

Due to the change of the presidency in Spain, it was considered important for this work that the second set of posts to be reviewed were those of the new president, Pedro Sánchez; thus, the meeting with Macron, president of France, was chosen because the meetings with presidents or heads of government are specifically the ones that had the most reactions in the period in which social networks were monitored, and as an example, the meeting with Theresa May was third in reactions in the revised period. See Figures 10 and 11.