Negative campaigning. Comparative analysis of the hate speech
broadcast by Catalonian political leaders on their ofcial Twitter
accounts and television
Negatividad en procesos electorales. Análisis comparativo del discurso de odio
difundido por los líderes políticos catalanes en su cuenta ocial de Twitter y en
televisión
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How to cite this article:
Lava Santos, D. (2023). Negative campaigning. Comparative analysis of the hate speech broadcast by Catalonian political leaders on their ocial
Twitter accounts and television.
Doxa Comunicación
, 37, pp. 39-62.
https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n37a1889
David Lava Santos.
Bachelor’s Degree in Audio-visual Communication in 2019 from Rey Juan Carlos University in
Madrid. During the 2019-2020 academic year, he studied a Master’s Degree in New Journalism, Political Communication
and the Knowledge Society at Universitat de València. He is currently developing his thesis on political polarisation,
populism, and negative campaigns in social networks at the latter university.
Universitat de València, Spain
Email:
[email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-2352-5083
Abstract:
is research aims to shed light on the phenomenon of negative
campaigning in the current Spanish political and media landscape. e
main objective is to nd signicant variations in hate speech according
to the degree of control that politicians are able to exert in diverse
media. To this end, an analysis has been carried out regarding the
totality of criticism that Catalonian political leaders issued in the three
televised election debates, as well as in the original publications of their
ocial twitter accounts during the Catalonian election campaign of 14
February 2021. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to conrm
the presence of determinants related to ideology and posturing in the
government prior to the elections analysed, as well as in the broadcast
of those attacks. is study has used a quantitative-qualitative content
analysis methodology with a coding sheet composed of ve variables
Resumen:
La investigación pretende arrojar luz sobre el fenómeno de las campañas
negativas en el panorama político y mediático español actual. Con el
objetivo principal de encontrar diferencias signicativas en los discursos
de odio según el grado de control que pueden ejercer los actores políticos
en los diversos medios de comunicación, se han analizado todas
las críticas que los líderes políticos catalanes han emitido en los tres
debates electorales televisados y en las publicaciones originales de su
cuenta ocial de Twitter durante la campaña electoral catalana del
14 de febrero de 2021. Adicionalmente, se ha pretendido demostrar la
existencia de condicionantes ideológicos y de posicionamiento en el
gobierno previo a las elecciones analizadas también en la difusión de
esos ataques. El trabajo ha empleado una metodología de análisis de
contenido cuantitativo-cualitativo utilizando una cha de codicación
Received: 20/12/2022 - Accepted: 20/04/2023 - Early access: 11/05/2023 - Published: 01/07/2023
Recibido: 20/12/2022 - Aceptado: 20/04/2023 - En edición: 11/05/2023 - Publicado: 01/07/2023
is content is published under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. International License
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1. Introduction
e special features oered by the Internet in the current hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2013), “characterised by the coexistence
of traditional and digital media” (Gamir et al., 2022, p. 2), has enabled the intensication of hate speech (Bustos-Martínez et al.,
2019) by dierent politicians through applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. As such, during electoral campaigns,
leaders use the communication tools at their disposal to build a discourse in order to undermine their rivals.
e use of continuous criticism and attacks is closely related to the populist communication style. e establishment of populist
parties on the current political scene has led to the rise of increasingly emotional political language infused with “anger”, “fear”,
“resentment” and, above all, contempt of political opponents (Bucy, et al., 2020, p. 640).
In any case, negative campaigns are a “distinctive” element in today’s competitive “electioneering” (Nai and Maier, 2020, p. 3).
Ever since the rst truly negative electoral advertisement was broadcast on US television in the 1960s, known as the Daisy Spot
(Jiménez, 2011), attacks between politicians have become a global phenomenon during campaigns (Sullivan and Sapir, 2012).
Despite academic disagreement on the possible social eects of negative campaigning on the electorate, the literature addressing
this anomaly conrms that politicians in contemporary Western democracies have signicantly increased their use of these
tactics (Russmann, 2017; Geer, 2006).
However, there is only a scant amount of research that attempts to understand the variation in the nature of the attacks, depending
on the medium in which the politician nds him or herself during the delivery of the criticism, as well as the factors that explain
the use of negative discourse in election campaigns (Walter and Vliegenthart, 2010; Walter and de Brug, 2013; Dolezal, et al., 2016;
Russmann, 2017). erefore, the main objective of this study is to analyse the conduct used in the attacks carried out by the main
candidates for the presidency of the Catalonian government during the 14 February 2021 election campaign in two signicantly
dierent media: television and Twitter. e aim is to determine the communication channel on which politicians criticise with
more intensity, as well as the direction, typology, and scale of the reproaches they express. In addition to this main objective, the
research also aims to determine the ideological and positioning factors within the government prior to the elections that have
encouraged the exchange of pejorative messages between political opponents.
e decision to focus on the elections of the Catalonian Autonomous Region is due to the continuous presence in the public debate
in recent years of the “predominance of Catalonian nationalism” (Díaz, 2021, p. 2). e second reason is that the voting decision
related to analysing the negative campaigning. e most signicant
ndings not only show a much more critical tone used by candidates
in the debates when compared to the microblogging network, but
they also highlight the digital platform as a means of discrediting the
personal traits of political opponents to a greater extent.
Keywords:
Negative campaigning; electoral debates; social networks; political
leaders; Catalonian elections.
compuesta por cinco variables relativas al estudio de la campaña
negativa. Los resultados más relevantes no solo demuestran una mayor
entonación de críticas por parte de los candidatos en los debates que en
la red de microblogging, sino que sitúan a la plataforma digital como
un medio para desprestigiar en mayor medida los rasgos personales de
los adversarios políticos.
Palabras clave:
Campaña negativa; debates electorales; redes sociales; líderes políticos;
elecciones catalanas.
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is not exclusively subordinated to the classic left-right concept, but is also inuenced by a feeling of independent identity, which
allows us to obtain a wider range of results in the study of political negativity. e third reason why the Catalonian plebiscite has
been chosen is because events such as the 1 October referendum and the application of Article 155 of the Constitution (March,
2020), place the Catalonian political scenario in “a highly polarised situation” (López-Pereira, et al., 2019, p. 230), which is
conducive to the rise of hate speech.
1.1. Literature review
Some authors place the origins of negative campaigning in the second era of election campaigns (Roemmele and Gibson,
2020), when political communication started to become a profession in response to the rise of television (Joathan and Alves,
2020) as a mass medium (Esser and Pfetsch, 2020). e audio and visual dynamics of this media, together with its ability to
broadcast emotional content and personal aspects of politicians (Marcos-García et al., 2021), brought about a change in electoral
communication strategy.
us, it is no surprise that political parties sought to emphasise the use of these emotions (García-Beaudoux and D’Adamo,
2013) and began to use a communicative approach focused on “attacking and criticising the opponent” (Geer, 2006, p. 23) by
disseminating negative content (Russmann 2017). Nowadays, the facilities oered by digital platforms (Bustos-Martínez et al.,
2019) allow politicians to freely disseminate messages with rigid and aggressive rhetoric (D’Adamo and García-Beaudoux, 2016).
Moreover, far from “highlighting their own virtues”, they continuously highlight their opponents’ “aws” (Marcos-García et al.,
2021, p. 3).
e nature of communication media is not the only determining factor that encourages politicians to send out negative messages.
From a psychological point of view, Hopp and Vargo (2017) claim that negative political information attracts more attention
than armative or neutral information. is phenomenon, known as the “negativity eect” (García-Beaudoux, et al., 2005, p.
163), states that negative information tends to have a stronger inuence “on people’s perception and judgment than positive
information” (Méndez and Pérez, 1995, p. 19).
1.1.1. Channels of negative election campaigns
e literature that allows negative campaigning to be empirically measured can be summarised in two lines of research (Walter
and Vliegenthart, 2010). e rst examines the eects of negativity on voter turnout (Brooks, 2006; Brooks and Geer, 2007;
Lengauer, et al., 2011). Although the second provides an amount of literature that is still limited (Maier and Nai, 2021; Milazzo et
al., 2021), studies analysing the behaviour and level of intensity of negative campaigns in dierent communication channels have
recently started to appear.
Walter and Vliegenthart (2010) highlight the need to analyse various media in order to provide real scientic evidence on the
use of negative campaigning in elections. In their study they pay special attention to the conduct of such attacks during the 2006
Dutch elections, comparing negative campaigning in three election debates and several newspaper articles. Among the most
striking conclusions is the assertion that “the amount of control that politicians exert over communication channels” (Walter and
Vliegenthart, 2010, p. 455) is an important factor when it comes to whether or not they use negativity in their messages, or that
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the less control politicians have over the media, the more the attacks are personal and directed at specic political leaders rather
than parties.
Years later, Russmann (2017) attempted to verify the hypothesis of Walter and Vliegenthart (2010), but this time she studied three
traditional media controlled by political parties in the 2008 elections in Austria: campaign posters, newspaper advertisements,
and press releases. As noted by Russmann (2017, p.110) “the results do not reveal a clear pattern of use of the dierent types of
negative messages”. Moreover, in contrast to other pioneering research, a high number of attacks that make judgments about
personal characteristics and campaign tactics is apparent in the party-controlled channels. With regard to the 2016 general
elections in Spain, in an analysis of Facebook, Marcos-García et al. (2021) observed that the use of criticism by leaders focused on
specically discrediting their rivals rather than parties or the media, by using ideological and emotional derision (Marcos-García
et al., 2021).
ese analyses point to a clear association between the media coverage of negative campaigns (Pedersen, 2014) and the degree
of pressure that politicians are able to exert on existing media (Geer, 2006). In this sense, the current communicative framework
eventually toppled the dominant paradigm of mediatised politics in which the prevailing role of the media imposed “certain
types of portrayals on the rest of the social actors” (Peris Blanes et al., 2020, p. 56), as well as politicians, and the traditional media
started to coexist with social networks in a hybrid space (Chadwick, 2013).
us, digital platforms allow politicians to construct direct narratives without the intervention of external social agents (Casero
and Yeste 2014). Consequently, faced with a wide range of channels at their disposal in election campaigns, politicians no longer
have the “same level of control” over them and, as a result, the magnitude of negative campaigning diers according to the
medium used (Walter and Vliegenthart, 2010, p. 443).
1.1.2. Factors involved in embracing negative election campaigns
e majority of scholars who are interested in the competition between political parties and leaders (Cerón and d`Adda, 2016)
agree on the need to develop dierent hypotheses on the use of negative campaigning, which are tailored to each country’s party
system (Hansen and Pedersen, 2008).
According to the positioning hypothesis (Auter and Fine, 2016), in a two-party system the decision to resort to negative
campaigning rests on the candidate’s position in relation to his or her political rivals in the polls. Candidates who are behind their
rivals in the polls (Auter and Fine, 2016) try to take away votes by using negative discourse. Conversely, in a multi-party system,
negative campaigning can be truly “eective” (Cerón and d`Adda, 2016, p. 1938) when attacks are directed at politicians with a
similar ideology (Curini and Martelli, 2010; Nai, 2018).
is hypothesis seems to contradict the need for political parties in a multi-party system to form coalition governments after
elections (Walter, 2012). Consolidating possible government coalitions (Haselmayer, 2019) inuences the conduct of negative
campaigning between two or more parties who are located at similar points on the political spectrum. Despite having the option
of carrying out a negative campaign, if the expression of negativity between ideologically similar parties becomes too aggressive,
it can harm their relationship and prevent them from governing together (Walter, 2012; Walter and Der Brug, 2013).
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e second theory is presented by Elmelund-Praestekaer (2010, p. 137 et seq.), in which he argues that “proximity to governmental
power” aects the degree of negativity in any party system. is hypothesis, previously established by Hansen and Pedersen
(2008), asserts that opposition parties become more negative in election campaigns than parties already in the government. As the
“incumbent” parties have the option of strengthening their past performance in the mind of the public (Elmelund-Praestekaer,
2010, p. 137 et seq.), rather than build a negative discourse, they use arguments in favour of the ocial policies they have pursued
during their years in government. By contrast, the “challenging” party or parties who oppose the incumbents can only “emphasise
future actions and promises” (Hansen and Pedersen, 2008, p. 411).
With all of the foregoing, and bearing in mind that studies on the conduct and nature of negative campaigning are largely
unexplored in Spain, we propose the following research questions:
RQ1: Is a higher level of negativity discernible by television in the three televised debates during the campaign for the
Catalonian Parliamentary elections in February of 2021, or it is higher on the ocial Twitter accounts of the eight candidates,
also during the same election period? Does negative campaigning reach a maximum level in media where politicians do not
fully control the message?
RQ2: Does the target, quality, and specic nature of the attacks used by the candidates dier according to the media analysed,
also in reference to the period of the Catalonian election campaign?
RQ3: Is the criticism related to the ideology of each candidate? In other words, with regard to both media, do candidates with
similar ideologies on the political spectrum attack each other more often, or is the opposite true, where more attacks are
observed between leaders with antagonistic ideologies?
RQ4: Do the challenging parties disseminate more criticism than the governing parties?
2. Methodology
2.1. Materials
e questions posed were answered by analysing a sample of the speaking turns made by the nine main candidates for the
presidency of the Catalonian government during the three televised debates during the election campaign period, as well as
the original publications on their ocial Twitter accounts. In both cases, the leaders analysed were the following: Salvador Illa;
Jéssica Albiach; Alejandro Fernández; Carlos Carrizosa; Ignacio Garriga; Pere Aragonès; Laura Borràs; Àngels Chacón; and
Dolors Sabater. “e proles analysed are” the leaders with “their own parliamentary group” (Gamir-Ríos and Sánchez-Castillo,
2022), in the 12th Legislature of the Catalonian Parliament, as well as the leaders of the parties to which the Centre for Sociological
Research (
CIS
) “attributed in its pre-electoral studies a number of votes that was higher” than 0.3% (Gamir-Ríos et al., 2022)
e debates were held on the following dates and locations: 31 January 2021 on
TVE
, moderated by Xabier Fortes; 9 February
2021 on
TV3
, moderated by Vicent Sanchis; and 11 February 2021 on
La Sexta
, moderated by Ana Pastor. e time frame diers in
the compilation of the original Twitter posts, and covers a total of 19 days, including not only the election campaign, but also the
day of reection, the polling, and the day after the vote (Gamir-Ríos, 2016). e posts from the last three days have been selected
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due to the fact that although “legislation prohibits campaign activities [...] outside the ocial designated period” (Gamir-Ríos,
2016, p. 112), political coverage is active nonetheless.
e debates were viewed by manually downloading the entire content from the TV channels’ ocial websites. In order to carry
out the coding, they were broken down into 435 units of analysis corresponding to all the speaking turns made by the candidates
during the debates. is made it possible to analyse each time a candidate spoke, as well as the statements and interruptions that
the politicians made among themselves, yet the moments in the debate when the leaders’ speeches were too incomprehensible
for the analysis to be carried out were discarded. In this way, 6 hours and 58 minutes of television broadcast footage was studied.
To answer the rst two research questions, the televised debates were chosen due to their quality as communicative spaces where
politicians cannot completely control the information they disseminate to the public, nor do they have strategic control of the
information as a consequence (Vaz-Álvarez et al., 2020; Casero-Ripollés, 2009), due to the fact that control is held by the editorial
line of each channel. As pointed out by Pérez (2009, p. 999), debates are restructured by using a “format that adheres to previously
set rules and behavioural guidelines”, in such a way that “they become somewhat controlled”.
In the case of Twitter posts, the sample has been collected thanks to
Twitonomy
. e units of analysis shown in Table 1 comprise
a total of 589 original tweets corresponding to the ocial accounts of the nine candidates for president of the Catalonian
government. To analyse the posts, a multimodal study was conducted, ranging from the text of a tweet to an image or possible
complementary video, yet discarding retweets and responses by the candidates to other users. Twitter has been chosen due to
its nature as a means of communication that is completely controlled by the leaders, which allows them to transmit the message
without any type of restriction (Gilardi, et al., 2022).
To display the ndings of RQ3 and RQ4, the nine candidates were grouped into four specic blocs according to their position on
the Spanish left-right political spectrum, the pro-independence left-right spectrum, and two blocs according to their pre-election
positions in the Catalonian government.
According to ideological criteria, the non-independence left wing was made up of Salvador Illa and Jéssica Albiach; the non-
independence right wing that supports Spanish unity included Alejandro Fernández, Carlos Carrizosa, and Ignacio Garriga; the
pro-independence left comprised Pere Aragonés and Dolors Sabater; and the pro-independence right included Laura Borràs and
Àngels Chacón.
e Catalonian government for the 12th legislature in 2017 was composed of
JunsXCat
and
ERC
, and the opposition included
Ciudadanos
,
PSC
,
En Comú Podem
,
CUP
and
PP
.
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Table 1. Sample based on the candidate and media outlet
Candidate
Political partyTwitter account
Speaking turns in
the debates
Posts on
Twitter
Salvador Illa
PSC
@salvadorilla6020
Alejandro Fernández
PP
@alejandroTGN4437
Jéssica Albiach
En comú Podem
@jessicaalbiach50158
Carlos Carrizosa
Ciudadanos
@carrizosacarlos44118
Pere Aragonès
ERC
@perearagones6755
Laura Borràs
JuntsXCat
@LauraBorras3749
Dolors Sabater
CUP
@mariadolorsa3856
Ignacio Garriga
VOX
@Igarrigavaz5251
Àngels
Chacón
PDeCAT
@angelschacon4345
Totals435589
Source: created by the author
2.2 Methodology
e methodology used for this study is based on quantitative-qualitative content analysis. is technique is part of the set of
research tools “aimed at explaining and systemising a set of communicative messages in the form of text, sound and images”
(Abela, 2002, p. 3), which allows access to features of a phenomenon “in a given context” (Osorio, 2018, p. 224). Furthermore, the
fact that the procedure for obtaining the results is both quantitative and qualitative has made it possible to measure the presence,
frequency and intensity with which the attributes investigated appear in the two media (Espín-López, 2002).
e percentages were obtained through the development of a coding sheet consisting of 5 variables, 4 of which are related to the
study of negative campaigns, which have been addressed in previous research (Marcos-García et al., 2021).
e process of collecting and processing the politicians’ hate speech was performed manually by the researcher, after which
the nal percentages of attacks were placed in an Excel spreadsheet and compared. e same analysis sheet was used for both
debates and tweets.
V1:
Medium analysed and the politician who participated in the debate or published the tweet
. is is a register variable, which
made it possible, on the one hand, to distinguish whether the research unit pertained to the turn-taking in the televised debates
or, if applicable, to the original publications on the Twitter social network. On the other hand, this variable was categorised
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according to the nine Catalonian candidates and list leaders by choosing, where appropriate, the leader who spoke in the debate
or disseminated the tweet.
V2:
Makes an attack
. is variable reects the dierence between the transmission (or not) of an attack by a leader who spoke in
the debate, or the dissemination of a post containing criticism of a rival. We consider an attack on a rival to be any “form of attack,
regardless of whether it is unfair, dishonest, irrelevant, or manipulative”. In this way, we have codied an attack as any discourse
whose main purpose is not the quality of a proposal, but rather the intention to discredit the opponent which, consequently, has
a distinct nature, target, and specicity depending on the type of criticism involved.
V3:
Components/quality of the attack
. Taking into account whether the attack was “simple” or “comparative”, the author has been
able to study the quality aspect of the criticism by using the methodological design previously established by García-Beaudoux
and D’Adamo (2013). e “simple” aspect of an attack is dened as criticism that “only points out what is negative about the
opponent”. By contrast, the “comparative” aspect was classied as such when the subject highlighted the aspects of the proposal,
in addition to the attack (García-Beaudoux and D’Adamo, 2013).
V4:
Target of the attack
. Once again, the categorisation used by García-Beaudoux and D’Adamo (2013) was used as a reference.
e specic nature of the reproaches was divided into two levels, making a distinction between criticism directed at a political
candidate, attacks aimed at a specic political party, and retorts directed at general political blocs. In the case of an attack
directed at a specic political candidate, the study attempted to identify the Catalonian political leaders who were the targets
of the criticism. us, taking into account the politician who spoke in the debate or published the tweet, the rest of the leaders
were categorised. When the retort was aimed at a political party or “general political bloc”, the values established were indicated
according to the eight Catalonian parties, excluding the party represented by the leader transmitting the information. Finally,
the category of “general bloc” was further subdivided into the following: “pro-independence bloc”; “non-independence bloc”;
“left”; “right”; “pro-independence left”; “non-independence left”; “pro-independence right”; “right wing in defence of Spanish
unity”; “Catalonian government”; “Spanish government”; and “parties in general”. is was carried out in order to select attacks
emanating from specic ideological blocs.
V5:
Typology of the attack
. Adapting the methodologies used by Valera and López (2014) and García-Beaudoux and D’Adamo
(2013), ve categories of analysis were coded in relation to the type of attack, as well as its combination with the previous variable,
“target of the attack”. is methodological framework made it possible to distinguish whether the retort was directed at a candidate,
a party, or an ideological bloc as a whole. us, when the criticism was directed at a candidate, it could be considered one of the
following: a) “personal”, in the case of attacking the candidate’s appearance, personal life, or competence; b) “track record”, when
this included the previous political record of the candidate under attack; c) “programme-related”, when the criticism referred to
the proposals of the candidate’s programme; d) “ideological”, when the attack was related to political ideology; and e) “association”,
when the candidate was associated with certain people, groups, or political and social sectors considered denigrating in the mind
of the public. In the case of attacks directed at a specic party or bloc, the typology of the attack could be related to one of the
following: a) the “track record” of the party or bloc; b) the “programme” it presented; c) its “ideology”; (d) “previous management”;
and (e) the party’s “association with certain individuals, groups, leaders, and political or social sectors”, also presented pejoratively
in the mind of the public (García-Beaudoux and D’Adamo 2013; Valera and López 2014).
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3. Results
3.1. Presence and intensity of the attacks in the election debates and on Twitter
In response to RQ1, as shown in Table 2, with regard to the 589 original Twitter posts, only 21% (n=122) were aimed at attacking
a political opponent. A more intense level of negativity can be seen in the speeches given during the three televised debates, as
the data reveal that in 47% (n=206) of the speaking turns, all nine candidates attacked the other leaders or parties at least once.
Moreover, it bears mentioning that during the course of the debates, the candidates made frequent use of negative campaigning,
oering two or more disparaging remarks in the same speech (69%).
Table 2. Total percentage of attacks by the leaders and their conduct in both media
Debates (%)
Twitter
(%)
Made an attack
47%21%
Did not make an attack
53%79%
Attack was directed at a candidate
39.53%18.03%
Attack was directed at a bloc
60.47%82.79%
Comparative aspect
35.22%66.39%
Simple aspect
68.11%33.61%
Source: created by the author
e analysis of negative campaign behaviour (RQ2) points to a clear dierence between the negativity of the leaders’ speeches in
the debates and on Twitter. On the social network, candidates criticised their opponents much more often with the comparative
aspect (66.39%) rather than simple (33.61%). By contrast, the study of the debates showed that the simple aspect reached a
percentage of 68.11%, with the comparative quality taking second position at 35.22%.
As for specicity of the criticism, fairly similar percentages were found in the analysis of both media. On both television and
Twitter, all nine candidates used a negative tactic by directly alluding to specic parties and blocs. However, the quantitative
methodology has allowed us to identify signicant dierences in the number of critical remarks directed at candidates during
the debates and in the tweets. When politicians disseminated posts with attacks online, only 18.03% of those critical comments
were intended to make judgments about others, while in the debates, oensive remarks that the candidates directed at each other
increased to nearly 40%.
Focusing on the typology of the attack, three dierent negative dynamics can be observed, depending on the target of the criticism
and the channel. In both media, when candidates focused their negative comments on parties or blocs, they prioritised attacks
aimed at discrediting their previous management and ideological features. In general, the candidates take a position that tends
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to discredit the previous decisions and policies of the parties as a whole, as well as ideological values, making use of anecdotal
criticism focused on reproaching electoral programmes or the performance history of the party or bloc.
A second dynamic shows that the retorts between candidates in the posts were more personal (27.27%), as they exploited a
contemptuous approach toward the private lives of the other leaders. Likewise, ideological attacks and vilication related to
association with other social or political groups were also present in the tweets, with percentages close to 30% in each category.
In the debates, however, according to the third dynamic, oensive personal retorts were less frequent (18.11%), with ideological
confrontations (29.92%) and criticism of the candidate’s previous record (39.37%) occupying most of the time in the total number
of negative speech turns on television.
Table 3. Total percentages related to the convergence of typology and direction of the attacks in both media
Convergence of typology and target of the attack
Debates (%)Twitter (%)
Personal attack on the candidate
18.11%27.27%
Ideological attack on the candidate
29.92%27.27%
Attack on the candidate’s track record
39.37%13.64%
Attack on the candidate’s associations
5.51%27.27%
Attack on the candidate’s programme
7.09%4.55%
Ideological attack
21.27%40.59%
Attack on the management of the party or bloc
61.49%33.66%
Attack on the associations of the party or bloc
3.45%17.82%
Attack on the track record of the party or bloc
9.77%1.98%
Attack on the programme of the party or bloc
4.02%2.97%
Source: created by the author
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Making negative judgments about the programmes of political leaders (4.55% on Twitter posts), or their associations with groups
that are denigrating in the mind of the public (5.51% in debates), were also present on both channels.
3.2 Political factors in voicing criticism
While it is true that there are ideological patterns of conduct in terms of the targets of the attacks (RQ3), the ndings show that
criticism between candidates on Twitter and in the debates were not solely and exclusively due to the ideologies presented by the
leaders themselves. As seen in Table 4, with the exception of Jéssica Albiach, all the leaders attacked the PSC candidate on at least
one occasion. In fact, the highest total percentage of attacks aimed at specic candidates was received by Salvador Illa, both on
Twitter (11.48%) and in the debates as well (13.26%).
e data collected on Salvador Illa verify his status as the political leader who received the highest number of derogatory
comments, which seems to be closely related to the large amount of criticism directed at his party, the PSOE. Even Albiach,
who shares the same ideology as Illa, published three negative tweets against the latter’s governmental partners in the national
territory, and in 8.33% of the total number of attacks in the debate, she even issued ideological reproaches against the same party.
At the same time, it is especially noteworthy that it was Illa himself who made the fewest attacks, following a clear ideological
pattern in the target of the negative messages, as they were directed at the right-wing candidates in defence of Spanish unity,
Alejandro Fernández and Ignacio Garriga, as well as pro-independence candidates, such as Laura Borrás, who were the main
targets of the Socialist leader’s pejorative comments in more than 60% of the attacks he delivered in the debates.
Table 4. Total percentages of the quantity and targets of the attacks made by non-independence candidates in both media
e leader who attacked
/ Target of the attack
Salvador Illa
(%)
Alejandro
Fernández
(%)
Jéssica
Albiach
(%)
Carlos
Carrizosa
(%)
Ignacio
Garriga
(%)
Salvador Illa
Twitter
Debates
/
/
63.64%
22.86%
0%
0%
7.89%
10.53%
0%
6.35%
Alejandro Fernández
Twitter
Debates
0%
11.11%
/
/
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
3.17%
Jéssica Albiach
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
2.86
/
/
0%
8.77%
0%
0%
Carlos Carrizosa
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
8.33%
/
/
0%
1.53%
Ignacio Garriga
Twitter
Debates
0%
16.67%
0%
14.29%
2.86%
0%
0%
8.77%
/
/
Pere Aragonès
Twitter
Debates
0%
5.56%
0%
0%
0%
8.33%
0%
7.02%
0%
6.35%
Laura Borràs
Twitter
Debates
0%
22.22%
0%
0%
8.57%
12.50%
2.63%
10.53%
0%
0%
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Àngels
Chacón
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
11.43%
0%
0%
0%
1.59%
Dolors Sabater
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
11.43%
0%
12.50%
0%
3.17%
PSOE
Twitter
Debates
/
/
27.27%
11.43%
8.57%
8.33%
0%
0%
PP
Twitter
Debates
0%
5.56%
/
/
2.86%
4.17%
0%
1.53%
Unidas Podemos
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
/
/
0%
0%
Ciudadanos
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
8.33%
0%
1.59%
Vox
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
17.14%
4.17%
/
/
ERC
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
8.57%
16.67%
0%
0%
JuntsXCat
Twitter
Debates
0%
5.56%
0%
0%
8.57%
12.50%
0%
0%
PeDCat
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
CUP
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Pro-independence bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
16.67%
0%
2.86%
0%
0%
0%
22.22%
Non-independence bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Left-wing bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
2.86%
0%
0%
4.76%
Right-wing bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
2.86%
0%
0%
0%
Right-wing bloc in de
-
fence of Spanish unity
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Right-wing pro-inde
-
pendence
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
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Left-wing non-indepen
-
dence
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Left-wing pro-indepen
-
dence
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Catalonian government
Twitter
Debates
100%
11.11%
9.09%
14.29%
37.14%
12.50%
33.33%
0%
Spanish government
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
5.71%
0%
0%
0%
1.59%
Other parties
Twitter
Debates
0%
5.56%
0%
0%
2.86%
4.17%
22.22%
46.03%
Source: created by the author
e communicative strategy of reproach used by Albiach was dominated by criticism strictly against the main leaders and groups
of the pro-independence bloc that comprised the previous government. While it is true that 8.33% of Albiach’s attacks were
focused on Carlos Carrizosa in the debates, and that 17.14% of her negative posts were directed at the extreme right-wing party
Vox
, most of her criticism was aimed at Laura Borrás (12.50% in the debates and 8.57% on Twitter), at her party,
JuntsXCat
(12.50%
in the debates and 8.57% on Twitter), and at ERC (16.67% in the debates and 8.57% on Twitter). erefore, the targets of Albiach’s
criticism is not inuenced by ideology. Instead, she focuses her eorts on attacking the measures taken by the Catalonian
government (12.50% in the debates).
Alejandro Fernández and Carlos Carrizosa employed a similar tactic of negative appeals in both media. In the debates, both
issued negative statements against Albiach (2.86% of the attacks by Alejandro Fernández’s and 8.77% of those made by Carrizosa),
and against Salvador Illa (22.86% for Alejandro Fernández and 10.53% for Carlos Carrizosa). However, there was erce criticism
of Ignacio Garriga, who received numerous denigrating comments from both candidates.
To make a distinction between the two candidates, we can see how Carlos Carrizosa, who was leader of the opposition in
the legislature prior to the elections under study, and despite the fact that during the debates he attacked most of the leaders
indiscriminately, he exploited the social network and the minutes provided to him by the television channels to repeatedly
make negative comments against the leaders of the Catalonian government and its parties. By contrast, Alejandro Fernández
hardly used Twitter to generate controversy beyond his criticisms of Salvador Illa, yet he crafted his ideological reproaches in his
television minutes, as shown by his attacks on the leaders of the left-wing, both nationalist and pro-independence.
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Image 1. Tweets by Carlos Carrizosa and Alejandro Fernández criticising Salvador Illa
Source:
Twitter.com
Ignacio Garriga was the candidate who made the highest percentage of attacks according to the number of speaking turns in the
debates (65%), while of his 51 publications on the social network, only 9 were directly critical. Despite personifying the criticism
against leaders of both the right and the left-wings, as well as those who support non-independence and those who favour pro-
independence, the analysis has shown that he is the candidate who grouped his derogatory statements into specic ideological
blocs, such as his 14 retorts to the pro-independence bloc, and to all of the parties as a whole (46.03% of the debates).
With regard to Pere Aragonès, he became the leader who, just behind Illa, made the lowest number of negative comments in
the debates, issuing only 25 attacks in his 67 speaking turns. On Twitter, he only attacked his rivals in 7 out of 55 posts. e
strategy used by Aragonès follows the same dynamic in both media, based on discrediting Salvador Illa, the PSOE, and the central
government. Moreover, although it was conrmed that Aragonès built a discourse to discredit leaders such as Carlos Carrizosa
and Àngels Chacón, the percentages were trivial, as a clear pattern of negativity toward the right-wing bloc was not established.
In spite of this, Aragonés was the pro-independence candidate with the highest number of critical statements against Ignacio
Garriga in the debates (16%).
For her part, Laura Borràs diered in the number of adverse comments she made, according to the media analysed, yet the data
provide evidence to conrm that the target of her criticism indeed showed an ideological pattern. us, the leader of JuntsXCat
is the one who spread fewer attacks on Twitter (4%), and when she published posts with pejorative statements, she did so against
Salvador Illa and the central government. In the debates, despite obtaining a higher percentage of reproaches for each speaking
turn (51%), the main target of her negative rebukes continued to be Illa (26.09%), Jéssica Albiach (8.70%),
Unidas Podemos
(8%),
ERC
(4.35%), and the central government (47.83%).
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Image 2. Tweets by Pere Aragonès and Laura Borràs with attacks directed at Salvador Illa and the Central Government
Source:
Twitter.com
Table 5. Total percentages of the quantity and targets of the attacks made by pro-independence candidates in the debates and on Twitter
e leader who attacked / Target
of the attack
Pere AragonèsLaura Borràs
Àngels
Chacón
Dolors Sabater
Salvador Illa
Twitter
Debates
28.57%
32%
50%
26.09%
7.69%
8.33%
0%
18.75%
Alejandro Fernández
Twitter
Debates
0%
4%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Jéssica Albiach
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
8.70%
0%
0%
0%
3.13%
Carlos Carrizosa
Twitter
Debates
0%
4%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
3.13%
Pere Aragonès
Twitter
Debates
/
/
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
3.13%
Laura Borràs
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
/
/
23.08%
12.50%
0%
0%
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Dolors Sabater
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
4.17%
/
/
Ignacio Garriga
Twitter
Debates
0%
16%
0%
4.35%
0%
0%
0%
15.63%
Àngels
Chacón
Twitter
Debates
0%
4%
0%
4.35%
/
/
0%
0%
PSOE
Twitter
Debates
57.14%
8%
0%
0%
0%
4.17%
16.67%
6.25%
PP
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Unidas Podemos
Twitter
Debates
0%
8%
0%
4.35%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Ciudadanos
Twitter
Debates
0%
4%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Vox
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
ERC
Twitter
Debates
/
/
0%
4.35%
0%
8.33%
0%
3.13%
JuntsXCat
Twitter
Debates
0%
4%
/
/
30.77%
8.33%
0%
0%
PeDCat
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
/
/
0%
3.13%
CUP
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
23.08%
12.50%
/
/
Pro-independence bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
4.17%
0%
0%
Non-independence bloc
Twitter
Debates
14.29%
0%
50%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Left-wing bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
4.17%
0%
0%
Right-wing bloc
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Right-wing in defence of Spanish
unity
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
4.17%
0%
0%
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Right-wing pro-independence
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Left-wing non-independence
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
4.17%
0%
0%
Left-wing pro-independence
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
7.69%
0%
0%
Catalonian government
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
7.69%
8.33%
50%
15.63%
Spanish government
Twitter
Debates
0%
16%
0%
47.83%
0%
8.33%
16.67%
9.38%
Other parties
Twitter
Debates
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
8.33%
16.67%
18.75%
Source: created by the author
In the case of Àngels Chacón, the percentages of attacks in both media never exceeded 40%. When the
PDeCAT
leader strengthened
her attacks on specic candidates, a clear aversion toward three politicians was reected: Salvador Illa, Laura Borràs, and Dolors
Sabater. On television, the percentage of criticism directed at Borrás reached 12.50% of her speaking turns; Illa received 8.33%;
and Sabater 4.17%. Even on Twitter, the JuntsXCat leader accounted for more than 20% of the posts published by Chacón that had
at least one negative comment.
Moreover, the criteria followed by Àngels Chacón when it comes to targeting her criticism at specic parties or blocs has also
been conrmed. is leader focused most of her negative comments on the three pro-independence parties and the Catalonian
government. erefore, on Twitter, Chacón directed 30.77% of her negative posts at
Junts
, and 23.08% at ERC. In the debates, the
CUP was the most reviled party, obtaining a percentage of 12.50% of the total number of attacks issued by Àngels. e PDeCAT
leader also circulated criticism against the central government and the parties of the non-independence left, yet it is clear that
Àngels Chacón distinguishes herself by focusing her criticism specically at the pro-independence bloc.
Finally, Dolors Sabater, whose party is ideologically located within the pro-independence left and was part of the opposition,
made greater use of negativity in the debates, where 54% of her speaking turns contained criticism, compared to Twitter, in
which 11% of the posts contained attacks. us, as with most of the candidates, the politician at whom she directed most of her
attacks was Salvador Illa (18.75% in the debates). However, in her speaking turns during the televised minutes, together with Pere
Aragonès, Dolors Sabater was the pro-independence candidate who voiced the most negative comments against the leader of the
extreme right (15.63%). Moreover, the fact that on some occasions she made unfavourable statements about Carlos Carrizosa and
Jéssica Albiach conrms that her criticism was not inuenced by ideology.
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Image 3. Compilation of tweets by Àngels Chacón and Dolors Sabater criticising Laura Borràs, JuntsXCat and ERC
Source:
Twitter.com
On the contrary, if we focus on critical comments against specic blocs, the tendency of Sabater was to make negative statements
against the Catalonian and central government. us, in 50% of her tweets that contained some kind of criticism, and in 15.63%
of her speaking turns in the debates with censure, the negative comments of the
CUP
leader were directed toward the parties that
comprise the Catalonian government. Similarly, 9.38% of her negative comments were used to attack the central government in
the debates, and 16.67% on Twitter. Even when Sabater used a negative narrative against the parties as a whole, the percentage of
attacks in both channels through speaking turns and disparaging tweets exceeded 15%.
4. Discussion and conclusions
e main objective of this research is to conrm the nature of the attacks emanating from Catalonian political candidates in
televised debates and on Twitter. Another aim is to analyse the possible determining factors that led these same leaders to use a
negative discourse during the campaign period of the elections held in February of 2021.
In line the postulate oered by Walter and Vliegenthart (2010), the ndings obtained allow us to establish a general hypothesis
that the intensity and manner of the attacks in the various media are expressed in many ways (Milazzo et al., 2021), depending on
the control exercised by the politician in issuing his or her content. In response to RQ1 regarding the level of negativity in the two
media analysed, it has been conrmed that criticism is used much more in televised debates than on Twitter.
us, although the results show that negative campaigning was present on the social network, none of the political leaders
exceeded 35% with regard to tweets that might contain some kind of derogatory comment toward their rivals, a percentage that is
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not far from that found in previous Spanish studies on negativity in social networks (Marcos-García et al., 2021; Donstrup, 2019;
Abejón-Mendoza and Mayoral-Sánchez, 2017). By contrast, in the debates the candidates discredited their political opponents
with greater intensity.
It is possible that the percentage dierences regarding the level of negativity that the politicians constructed in the two media is
not exclusively due to the dominance that these leaders have over their message, but might also be inuenced by the inherent
nature of the channel. One possible explanation for these ndings is that the physical space of the debates, which is a television
studio where politicians meet each other face to face and in-person, makes the opponents more prone to expressing derogatory
comments toward each other than on Twitter. Despite the obvious audience fragmentation, which has been fostered by the
proliferation of channels (Casero-Ripollés, 2009), election debates are still very large media events, and the audience does not
have the same ideology. Consequently, politicians who participate and present their arguments are able to gain an advantage on
certain occasions (Vaz-Álvarez et al., 2020), an example of which is undecided voters. By contrast, on the Twitter social network,
where the number of text characters is limited, and where homophilic segregation (Aruguete, 2019) “keeps citizens in ideologically
closed worlds” (Waisbord, 2020, p. 265), candidates emphasise their own positive aspects rather than discredit their opponents.
In relation to RQ2, dierent parameters are evident, depending on the channel examined.
us, as occurred with Facebook in research carried out by Marcos-García et al. (2021), Twitter is now consolidated as a digital
platform in which criticism has acquired a comparative aspect, and leaders have been using a “destructive-constructive”
strategy (Marcos-García et al., 2021) when attacking their opponents. By contrast, in televised debates politicians emphasise the
weaknesses of their opponents rather than their own virtues.
In the case of the target of criticism, contrary to expectations, leaders posted a large number of attacks on Twitter against specic
political parties, and blocs in particular, generally avoiding direct reprimands of their opponents. Candidates such as Dolors
Sabater, Ignacio Garriga and Salvador Illa did not post any derogatory statements against rival political gures. However, in the
debates one could see that there was a higher percentage of negative comments aimed at the candidates present on the set.
Regarding the typology of Twitter attacks, the ndings are not supported by previous research by Russmann (2017). However,
some of the results coincide with studies of negativity in the Spanish democratic system (Marcos-García et al., 2021; Valera and
López, 2014). In the microblogging network, the content of the attacks aimed at parties and governmental bodies were mainly
challenges to ideology and previous management, while the posts aimed at criticising specic rivals focused on discrediting the
personal traits of the candidates, as well as their association with groups considered oensive in the mind of the public. In the
debates, the largest number of critical comments aimed at political organisations sought to emphasise, as in the case of the social
network, their previous mismanagement and ideology, while the allegations that attempted to negatively assess rivals tried to
criticise the candidates’ previous track record and the ideology they upheld.
e results regarding RQ3 and RQ4 cannot be understood without knowing the political context of the Catalonian territory, which
diers greatly from that of the national context (López-Pereira, et al., 2019). It is worth noting that the Catalonian electoral system
is unique, due to the need for leaders of the political parties known as ERC, JuntsXCat, CUP and PDeCAT to achieve independence
by perpetuating the “identity of the community and the legal status of the territory” (Carratalá and Palau-Sampio, 2019: 79). On
the opposite side are the PP, PSOE (PSC at the regional level), and Ciudadanos who, following the reading in the Catalonian
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Parliament of the declaration of independence agreed upon by the pro-independence MPs in 2017, applied or supported the
suspension of autonomy in accordance with their interpretation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution (Marzo, 2019). After
the regional elections of 2021, Vox joined these three parties. Finally, taking a more neutral stance is Unidas Podemos (
En Comú
Podem
in the autonomous region). Although it “has expressed a positive attitude with regard to the right to self-determination, it
has always done so timidly” (March, 2019, p. 503).
Based on the foregoing, dierent trends can be observed in the factors that have motivated politicians to issue messages that
denigrate their rivals. Firstly, the fact that the leaders of all the political parties criticised Salvador Illa and the PSOE supports the
theory put forward by Nai (2020), who suggests that candidates “attack upward”; in other words, regardless of ideology, leaders
focus their attacks on the leader whom the polls predict will be the clear winner. In this sense, one should not exaggerate (Walter
and der Brug 2013) nor argue that polls play a fundamental role only in two-party systems, since they also inuence the decisions
of parties to adopt negative campaigning strategies in multi-party systems as well.
Secondly, we can conrm that partisan competition aects negativity bias (Dolezal et al., 2016). e attacks that took place seem
to have been driven generally by ideology, and leaders tried to focus their attacks on candidates who were outside the leanings of
their own party. By using contextual logic, the decision to give a negative assessment to leaders whose parties formed a coalition
with the central government lies in the need for Pere Aragonés, Laura Borrás, Àngels Chacón and Dolors Sabater to highlight
their discourse of independence among the population. Alejandro Fernández and Carlos Carrizosa expanded the message
they supported in national parliamentary acts, directing their negativity toward the left-wing. However, their repeated attacks
on Ignacio Garriga support the hypothesis of Curini and Martelli (2010) and Walter (2014), and allow us to see that oensive
criticism between parties with similar ideologies increases “disagreement on key issues, which opens the window of opportunity
for attacks based on ideology” (Nai, 2020).
Finally, in response to RQ4, with regard to the previous hypothesis set forth by Elmelund-Praestekaer (2010), it has been conrmed
that leaders whose parties were in opposition before the elections generated more negativity in the two media.
Finally, this research has a number of limitations that should be addressed in future studies on negative campaigning. Although
the sample is large enough to conrm the validity of the research questions put forth, it will be necessary to include other
media and communication formats in the universe under study. Likewise, in order to extrapolate the results to the national and
international spheres, studies should be carried out that analyse the same determining factors in other regional and European
elections.
5. Acknowledgements
is research has been conducted as part of the project entitled, “Disinformation ows, polarisation, and the crisis of media
intermediation” (PID2020-113574RB-I00), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Spanish Government.
We would like to express our gratitude to Charles Edmond Arthur for his diligent work in maintaining the essence of the original
article in his translation to English.
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