Abstract
This research analyses feminism-related tweets produced over a period of two months by both a male representative and a female representative of each of the four principal political parties in Spain (PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos and Podemos). Although their behaviour on Twitter is similar, the differences found are more marked by ideology than by gender. A content analysis shows that the parties tend to reinforce their ideological programme on Twitter, which is corroborated as a space for disseminating topics related to feminism, but not as a space for debate. Men tend to publish more than women and on less controversial topics, which allows us to observe the reproduction of patriarchal roles in the net.
Highlights
In 2007, the Spanish Parliament passed the first law on equality between men and women
As previous studies related to Twitter and political communication have shown, content analysis is the most suitable quantitative technique to determine and characterize the volume of tweets shared by the selected politicians (Valera Ordaz and López García, 2014; Cano-Orón and Llorca-Abad, 2017)
None of the politicians in the sample is featured on Twitter as a feminist, yet they all dealt with issues related to feminism at some point of the study period
Summary
In 2007, the Spanish Parliament passed the first law on equality between men and women. Violence against women has been taken out of the private sphere and the gender perspective has been introduced into public opinion. The Marea Violeta, the Decidir nos Hace Libres platform and Feminismos Sol are examples of how feminist discourse began to be built publicly in 2011 around the 15M movement (Caravantes, 2012). In this context, different issues related to feminism have entered the political agenda. Violence against women is increasingly present in the news agenda of conventional media (Menéndez, 2014) and in social media. It is a wide and interesting topic on which politicians define their positions (González, 1979; Verge, 2006)
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