Francesca Arcostanzo

Senior social media analyst and researcher.

21 May 2018

Twitter and the politicisation of ‘Europe’ in the 2018 Italian election campaign

By Francesca Arcostanzo

To get an overview of the stance different political parties have on Europe and the extent to which European integration was politicised in the run-up to the 2018 elections, we followed Italy’s election campaign on Twitter from February 19th up to election day. The Democratic Party (PD) presented itself as the ‘only alternative’ to the anti-European populism and the sovereignist closure that characterizes its competitors.

16 May 2018

The State of the Union 2018 discussion online

By Francesca Arcostanzo

The 2018 State of the Union conference organised by the European University Institute (EUI) that took place in Fiesole and Florence on May 10 and 11 triggered a strong online debate among participants, stakeholders and the general public.
During the two days, the EuVisions observatory monitored discussions related to the main event-hashtag #SoU2018.

13 March 2018

How Italy’s Five-Star Movement and the League Won the Twitter Campaign

By Giovanni Pagano, Francesca Arcostanzo and Martina Zaghi

We have followed 1,579 candidates and tracked their Twitter conversations in the two weeks before the Italian parliamentary elections. Also, we collected 400,000 citizens’ retweets and replies to candidates’ tweets.

2 March 2018

Delocalisation in the EU: the Embraco case on Twitter

By Martina Zaghi, Giovanni Pagano and Francesca Arcostanzo

EuVisions collected all conversations about the Embraco case that took place in the Italian Twitter-sphere between February 10 to 25, for a total amount of 50,984 tweets sent by 14,251 users. Many negative opinions were specifically addressed to the EU institutions and actors.

21 February 2018

Italian elections 2018: the Macerata attacks and the issue of immigration. A Twitter study

By Giovanni Pagano, Francesca Arcostanzo and Martina Zaghi

As the electoral campaign intensifies, political heat surrounding immigration remains high. Whatever the outcome of 4 March election will be, the issue of immigration is here to stay.

18 December 2017

Do German parties care about Europe? A Twitter study

By Giovanni Pagano, Francesca Arcostanzo and Martina Zaghi

Judging from the political debate on Twitter, the discussion about the European Union was not at the core of the German electoral campaign. However, surprisingly, mainstream parties demonstrated to be more capable than Eurosceptic ones to lead discussions on Europe.

3 November 2017

UK 2017 snap elections: did “tweeting Brexit” pay off?

By Francesca Arcostanzo and Giovanni Pagano

During the electoral campaign we tracked the Twitter activity of all the candidates in #GE2017 and measured the selective salience that candidates accorded to the Brexit theme. Results showed that tweeting “too much” about Brexit may have counterfired.

3 November 2017

UK 2017 snap elections: did “tweeting Brexit” pay off?

By Giovanni Pagano and Francesca Arcostanzo

22 September 2017

On the eve of the German elections, Alternative für Deutschland prevails on Twitter

By Francesca Arcostanzo and Giovanni Pagano

We have followed two weeks of the German electoral campaign on Twitter, collected over 200,000 tweets, and monitored the six main parties. We found that the rightwing nationalist Alternative für Deutschland dominates Twitter conversation.

31 July 2017

For Corbyn and against hard Brexit: British expats on Twitter during the #ge2017

By Francesca Arcostanzo and Giovanni Pagano

Judging from their tweeting, British expats residing in the EU27 countries lean to left of the political spectrum and are skeptical of a “hard Brexit” scenario.

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«Over the past decade, the response given by Member States to the multidimensional European crisis has given rise to a distinct integrative mode, namely ‘integration through crisis’, which may be contrasted with the integration through law that characterised the pre-Maastricht development of the European integration project.»

Francesca Arcostanzo

Francesca Arcostanzo

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