1. Introduction

In Spain, 67.6% of the population was connected to the Internet in 2011: 31,574,855 people, according to Internet Live Stats1 data, and by 2015 the figure reached 80.4% of the population with Internet access. This was a total of 37,060,103 people2. The EGM of October/November 20113 indicated that 52.4% of users utilized Internet to connect to Social Networks, and in the EGM of October/November 20154, the figure reached 64.2% of the population. The data indicate that the main Internet users are people between 25 and 44 years old. According to Statista, Facebook is the social network with the most users: 483 million in 2011 and 1,038 million5 in 2015, while Twitter went from 117 million in 2011 to 305 million active users in 20156.

Although not the most widely used network, Twitter is the one that politicians prefer to use in running their online cam-paigns, and most importantly, in relating to the electorate through new means of communication (Abejón, Sastre y Linares, 2012; Casero-Ripollés , Miquel-Segarra and Alonso-Muñoz, 2016, Casero-Ripollés, Sintes-Olivella and Franch, 2017, Enli, 2017b, Enli and Skogerbø, 2013, Freelon and Karpf, 2015, Jungherr, 2014a, Jungherr, 2014b, Jungherr, 2016 Jürgens and Jungherr, 2016, Machado and Capdevila, 2016, Larsson and Moe, 2014, Skogerbø and Krumsvik, 2014, Vergeer, 2016, Zugasti and Sabés, 2015). These activities are above and beyond traditional campaign activities, which undoubtedly coexist with those online (Casero-Ripollés, Feenstra and Tormey, 2016; Enli, 2017a; Vergeer, 2016).

“Digital media introduces certain novelties into electoral campaigns because they offer new tools for political communica-tion”, as expressed by Casero-Ripollés, Feenstra and Tormey (2016: 7). Therefore, we consider Twitter to be a powerful tool for strengthening relations between politicians and citizens.

In addition, Twitter offers “free, immediate, massive dissemination, while at the same time offering interaction and an open and transparent exchange of information and ideas” (Zugasti and Sabés, 2015: 163). Moreover, according to what has been written by Rodríguez and Ureña (2012), the use of this social network indicates modernity, generates conversations with citizens and a sense of community, and humanizes the candidate. Twitter is transformed into a social barometer and converts users into opinion leaders.

And even more importantly, given the speed with which contents are distributed and the greater access of citizens to the Internet, voters are finding renewed interest in political affairs after years of decline in this respect (Abejón, Sastre and Linares, 2012, Barber, 1984, Davis, 2005, Enli, 2017a, Lilleker and Vedel, 2013, Swanson, 1995). The most democratic soci-eties have become interested in politics once again, a factor that has been unleashed “[...] by an interest in online media and its decentralized nature, which offers the promise of empowerment”, according to Carpentier (2016: 70), while “digital