Social media 25 February 2019 Debating Europe ahead of the EU Elections 2019: do MEPs and citizens interact on Twitter? By Martina Zaghi In order to get a complete overview of the extent to which a transnational debate is developing in Europe, I changed the perspective from MEPs to citizens. I wanted to see whether and how European people online interact with MEPs of different nationalities to their own, and to what extent they favour the development of a transnational debate compared with MEPs’ activity.
Social media 8 February 2019 Debating Europe ahead of the EU Elections 2019: how MEPs interact on Twitter By Martina Zaghi I focus on the Twitter communications of actual members of the EP and try to shed light on whether, and to what extent, they interact with colleagues of different nationalities.
Social media 17 December 2018 MEPs on Twitter #10: Spanish MEPs top the ranking By Martina Zaghi In terms of tweets-to-meps ratio, Spanish MEPs were second only to British ones this week. All in all, the distribution looks more balanced compared to precedent weeks.
Social media 29 November 2018 When Le Pen meets Salvini – A Twitter analysis By Martina Zaghi Speaking at a joint press conference in Rome, on October 8, the French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and Italian deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini unveiled their common plans for the European Union in the run-up to the European Parliament elections of May 2019
Social media 20 November 2018 MEPs on Twitter #7: EFDD seizes the Brexit debate By Martina Zaghi Without any doubt, the EFDD was the most influent EP Group, collecting, on average, 36 reactions for every tweet.
Social media 13 November 2018 MEPs on Twitter #6: the “spitzenkandidat” conundrum By Martina Zaghi With no surprise, the messages sent by MEPs were mainly focused on the #eppcongress, besides the usual attention given to #brexit. Citizens focused instead and, once again, on #brexit and #venezuela. Interestingly, people also focused on some issues that involved the Italian deputy Prime Minister, Luigi Di Maio (Five Star Movement).
Social media 6 November 2018 MEPs on Twitter #5: are Greens and S&D catching up? By Martina Zaghi The Social Democrat MEP, Sergio Gutiérrez Prieto, featured as one of the most active Deputies this week. Prieto mostly tweeted about the Castilla La Mancha issue. Instead the British Deputies, Richard Corbett (S&D Group) and Nigel Farage (EFDD Group), top the rankings of the most retweeted and replied Deputies, respectively.
Social media 30 October 2018 MEPs on Twitter #4: the Italian budget row By Martina Zaghi The first insight from this week's monitoring is that the absolute number of tweets followed a declining trajectory, following the EP plenary days (22-25th of October). This signals a strong effect of the monthly gathering in Strasbourg on MEPs' Twitter activity.
Social media 23 October 2018 MEPs on Twitter #3: EPP takes the lead By Martina Zaghi MEPs of the EPP group tweeted more than all other parties and increased their amount of online conversations week after week. Also looking at the tweets-to-MEPs ratio, EPP deputies proved to be more active than previous weeks. They ranked third, behind the EFDD and the Greens/EFA.
Social media 16 October 2018 MEPs on Twitter #2: MEPs’ and citizens’ diverging priorities By Martina Zaghi This week MEPs mainly dealt with the Brexit negotiations (#brexit, #peoplesvote) and the local elections in Warsaw that took place on October 21 (#trzaskowski2018, #debatawarszawska). Instead, citizens mostly focused on Brexit and other UK issues (#brexit, #scrapthelicencefee).