Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntParticipación en Twitter (X) tras el fallecimiento de Verónica Forqué y Álex Casademunt doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | 131 January-June of 2025ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978How to cite this article: Olivar-Julián, F. J.; Díaz-Campo, J. and Segado-Boj, F. (2025). Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex Casademunt. Doxa Comunicación, 40, pp. 131-149.https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n40a2139Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián. Lecturer (International University of La Rioja). One six-year research period recognised by the Spanish National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI). Member of the research group “Communication and Digital Society” (COYSODI). Pre-doctoral Excellence Scholarship. Postdoctorate in Communication (University of Navarra). Expert for the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG). Creator of a Utility Model granted by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Oce (OPEM).International University of La Rioja (UNIR), Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0002-2030-2458Jesús Díaz-Campo. Bachelor’s degree and P.hD in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). Director of Research and Senior Lecturer at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR). Accredited by ANECA as a Senior Lecturer. Holds a six-year research period (CNEAI). Director of the research group “Communication and Digital Society” (COYSODI).International University of La Rioja (UNIR), Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0001-5014-8749Francisco Segado-Boj. Lecturer (Complutense University of Madrid). PhD in Communication (Complutense University of Madrid). Co-director of the Research Group “History and Structure of Communication and Entertainment”, Department of Journalism and Global Communication – Faculty of Information Sciences. Complutense University of Madrid, Spain[email protected]ORCID: 0000-0001-7750-3755is content is published under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. International License CC BY-NC 4.0

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132 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicación1. Introductionere are numerous research studies on user engagement on social networks. ese studies address topics related to the business sphere (Cuervo-Carabel, Arce-García and Orviz-Martínez, 2022), political communication (Castanho Silva and Proksch, 2022), medicine (Burgess et al., 2022), including studies on COVID-19 (Xie and Liu, 2022), as well as research on communication about mental health (Kelley and Gillan, 2022) and trac accidents (Suat-Rojas, Gutierrez-Osorio and Pedraza, 2022).However, despite specic studies addressing suicide on Twitter, now known as X (Durán-Mañes et al., 2023), or on suicide involving famous victims (Müller, 2011), no research to date has been found that examines all these variables concurrently, including trac accidents, as is undertaken exclusively in this research. Additionally, there is research on the media impact of news concerning suicides and trac accidents- along with accidental falls and drownings- in the Spanish digital press (Olivar-Julián, Segado-Boj and Díaz-Campo, 2022a; Olivar-Julián, Segado-Boj and Díaz-Campo, 2022b). ese studies highlight disparities in media coverage of these causes of death, highlighting an excess of news related to trac accidents and signicant news silence concerning suicides.Similarly, there exist studies analysing trac accidents and suicides among young people (Olivar-Julián, Díaz-Campo, 2020; Scoureld et al., 2019), but a comparative study examining social conversation on Twitter (X) following the deaths of two similarly Received: 31/10/2023 - Accepted: 25/04/2024 - Early access: 04/07/2024 - Published: 01/01/2025Recibido: 31/10/2023- Aceptado: 25/04/2024- En edición: 04/07/2024 - Publicado: 01/01/2025Abstract: is study analyses the participation on Twitter (X) during the 15 days following the deaths of Veronica Forque (suicide) and Alex Casademunt (trac accident). e primary objective of the study is to compare the reactions generated on Twitter (X) to the suicide versus the trac accident of a famous person. To achieve this, the Application Programming Interface Tweet Downloader was used to download batches of tweets (posts) corresponding to each period. Pearson's chi-square test was utilised to identify dierences in the messages. Additionally, a content analysis was conducted on a sample of the retrieved tweets (n=621), in which various variables were measured. e results indicate that despite both victims being similarly well-known to the public, Twitter (X) activity was higher in the case of Veronica Forque than in the case of Alex Casademunt. Furthermore, the topic of suicide prompted discussions about guilt (internal and external), preventive measures, and their perceived usefulness compared to the trac accident, which elicited more expressions of emotions and mentions of the cause of death. Keywords: Twitter (X); suicide; trac accident; Veronica Forque; Alex Casademunt.Resumen: Este estudio analiza la participación en Twitter (X) durante los 15 días siguientes a los fallecimientos de Verónica Forqué (suicidio) y Álex Ca-sademunt (accidente de tráco). El principal objetivo del estudio es comparar las reacciones generadas en Twitter (X) ante un suicidio y un accidente de tráco de una persona famosa. Para ello, se ha utili-zado la Interfaz de Programación de Aplicaciones Tweet Downloader desde donde se han descargado los lotes de tuits (post) correspondientes a cada periodo. Se ha utilizado la prueba de chi cuadrado de Pearson para identicar diferencias en los mensajes. También se ha llevado a cabo un análisis de contenido sobre la muestra de tuits recuperados (n=621), donde se han medido diferentes variables. Los resultados in-dican que, a pesar de que ambas víctimas son personajes similarmente conocidos por el público, la participación en Twitter (X) ha sido mayor en el caso de Verónica Forqué que en el caso de Álex Casademunt y que el motivo de suicidio se presta a comentar la culpabilidad (interna y ex-terna), el enfoque preventivo y la utilidad frente al accidente de tráco, en donde se observa una mayor expresión de la emotividad y la mención de la causa de la muerte.Palabras clave: Twitter (X); suicidio; accidente de tráco; Verónica Forqué; Álex Casademunt.
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 133 famous individuals in the same year, with a very similar number of selected tweets (currently posts) in the sample (321 about Verónica Forqué and 300 about Álex Casademunt) has not yet been undertaken. Such a study will allow for an analysis of the communication dierences detected between dierent causes of death (suicide and trac accidents).erefore, the novelty of this study lies in its potential to compare results obtained with those of previous studies analysing the media coverage of these causes in Spanish digital press. is adds a higher degree of innovation and originality to this research, particularly in the context of examining the impact and social media reactions surrounding two celebrities who signicantly inuence media coverage. From all this, it can be inferred that the primary objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the societal impact of both events via the social network Twitter (X) and, more specically, to analyse the various variables that provide information about user behaviour on this social platform.In other words, this study will compare the number of tweets containing the victims’ full names, analyse mentions of the victims, along with the presence of hashtags, emotionality, and sensationalist features to assess user behaviour on Twitter (X) in their messages following the deaths of Álex Casademunt (due to a trac accident) and Verónica Forqué (by suicide). erefore, our objective is not to directly compare a trac accident with a suicide but rather to measure the impact of these fatal events on Twitter (X), considering victims of similar popularity. 1.1. Suicides and trac accidentsFrom 2010 to 2020 (both years inclusive), suicides constituted the leading cause of non-natural deaths in Spain (39,658 fatalities), while trac accidents (20,960 fatalities) ranked fourth (after accidental falls and drownings) in the ranking of deaths from external causes (INE, 2023).It is estimated that around 700,000 people worldwide die by suicide each year (WHO, 2023), and the number of deaths by suicide in Spain in 2020 was 3,941 (INE, 2023).On the other hand, approximately 1, 300, 000 people die each year worldwide due to trac accidents (WHO, 2022), while the number of fatalities from trac accidents in Spain (in 2020) was 1,463 deaths (INE, 2023). ese gures reveal a higher incidence of fatalities from trac accidents globally, whereas, in Spain, the mortality rate from suicide is notably higher than from trac accidents.While trac accidents have been widely covered in the media, this is not the case for suicides, which have been deliberately silenced to prevent a contagion eect –Werther eect– (Donovan and Boyd, 2021)lo que los medios de comunicación deciden no cubrir puede ser tan signicativo como lo que cubren. En este artículo, examinamos la producción histórica del silencio en el periodismo para comprender mejor el papel que juega la amplicación en las prácticas de moderación editorial y de contenido de los medios de comunicación y las plataformas de redes sociales actuales. A través de la lente del silencio estratégico (es decir, el uso de la discreción editorial para el bien público. On the other hand, there are professional recommendations advocating for responsible discussion of suicide to obtain a preventive eect –the Papageno eect– (Durán and Fernández-Beltrán, 2020). ese recommendations argue against systematically silencing this reality, highlighting a contrast with the current editorial discretion
134 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónintended to promote public welfare. is theory is based on a shift from strategic silence to a new editorial approach of “strategic amplication”, requiring media organisations and platform companies to develop and implement best practices ensuring responsibility and accountability in news content production and the algorithmic systems that disseminate it (Donovan and Boyd, 2021)lo que los medios de comunicación deciden no cubrir puede ser tan signicativo como lo que cubren. En este artículo, examinamos la producción histórica del silencio en el periodismo para comprender mejor el papel que juega la amplicación en las prácticas de moderación editorial y de contenido de los medios de comunicación y las plataformas de redes sociales actuales. A través de la lente del silencio estratégico (es decir, el uso de la discreción editorial para el bien público.e quality of news (dened as convergence with WHO recommendations for journalistic reporting on suicide) is particularly signicant in this context since low-quality reporting can lead to suicides through the contagion eect. In contrast, high-quality news reporting can save lives. ese ndings stem from data from a recent study providing a theoretically signicant discovery related to the underlying mechanism of suicide prevention, called the dampening-the-spikes hypothesis (Arendt, Markiewitz and Scherr, 2022). is evidence on the importance of quality news reporting has prompted media professionals to advocate for a new type of journalism aligned with constructive and solution-oriented reporting (Lough and McIntyre, 2021).Regarding Twitter (X), no evidence that posting tweets about suicides trigger a contagion eect has been found (Sinyor et al., 2021)few have explored suicide-related social media events and their potential relationship to suicide deaths. Aims: To determine whether Twitter events were associated with changes in subsequent suicides. Methods: Suicide-related Twitter events that garnered at least 100 tweets originating in Ontario, Canada (July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. ese messages have even been observed to focus on raising awareness, making this social network a constructive space for sharing preventive resources (Spates, Ye and Johnson, 2020).It is also relevant to note that Twitter (X) has software capabilities that enable automated analysis of sentiments and emotions (Korani and Mouhoub, 2020), lexical usage (Sarsam et al., 2021), hate speech (Arce-García, Díaz-Campo and Cambronero-Saiz, 2023). It also facilitates the identication of temporal patterns of suicide, which can serve as valid mechanisms for detecting and intervening in suicide online on a broad scale (Luo et al., 2020).1.2. Twitter (X) as a social networkSocial media platforms have become public spaces where users freely share personal opinions, exchange ideas, and promote social mobilisation (De Maio and Shae Rodriguez, 2022). is participation is facilitated by user-friendly interfaces, immediacy, and the opportunity to interact with public gures, media actors, and other citizens (Suau-Gomila et al., 2017).Twitter (X) stands out among these platforms as one of the most widely used globally (Babvey, 2021; Elliott-Maksymowicz, Nikolaev and Porpora, 2021; Kircova, 2021) and in Spain, it ranks among the most widely used alongside Facebook (Sánchez Conde, 2022). Currently, Twitter boasts 309 million active users worldwide (Bukhari et al., 2021) and 4.2 million users in Spain (Statista, 2022). Comparative studies on the commercial use of social media in Spain indicate that Twitter (X), Facebook, and Instagram rank among the top three platforms, surpassing other signicant networks such as YouTube, WhatsApp or LinkedIn (see Figure 1).Moreover, media outlets’ use of Twitter (X) to cultivate a community among their followers indicates this social network’s importance. is data, coupled with the ability to use retweets (now referred to as “Re posts), mentions, or hashtags, further
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 135 enhance its utility and the concept of transparency, a widely accepted norm in digital journalism (Van der Wur and Schönbach, 2011). Above all, these features represent new ways to forge connections and foster community (Durán-Mañes, 2023).Figure 1. Ranking of commercial use of Social Networks in Spain in 2022Source: Acebes and Montanera, 20222. MethodIn this study, tweets from Twitter (X) related to two famous individuals, Verónica Forqué Vázquez-Vigo (@veronicaforque), a Spanish actress and director who received four Goya awards and Alejandro (Álex) Casademunt i González (@alex_casad), a Spanish pop singer, actor and television presenter, both deceased in the same year (2021) are analysed. eir successful careers and achievements in the entertainment and performing arts industries indicate comparable levels of fame and recognition.e similar number of tweets recorded in this study for both individuals also indicates a similar level of fame and popularity, thereby justifying their comparison.Verónica Forqué died by suicide on 13 December 20221 in Madrid (El País, 2021a) while Álex Casademunt died in a trac accident on 2 March of the same year in Mataró –Barcelona– (El País, 2021b).Following her death, the actress’s Twitter (X) account was suspended, making it impossible to retrieve her number of followers (Twitter, 2022b). In contrast, the singer Álex Casademunt’s account remains active and has 58,200 followers (Twitter, 2022a).is study analysed tweets about these two famous individuals during the 15 days following their deaths. e objective was to observe dierent user behaviours in their posts, considering that social media has become a tool for disseminating emotional messages and oensive, insulting, or hateful opinions (eng et al., 2021).
136 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónTwitter’s (X) Application Programming Interface (API) Tweet Downloader was used with academic research access to Twitter’s API v2 to obtain tweets referencing the individuals studied. is tool has been used in recent studies (Kumari et al., 2024).e search process involved entering «Veronica Forque» (without accents or Boolean operators) between 13 December 2021 (12:00 PM. UTC) and 28 December 2021 (12:00PM. UTC) and «Alex Casademunt» from March 2 2021 (12:00PM. UTC Time) to 17 March 2021 (12:00 PM. UTC). ese time intervals encompassed the 15 days following each individual’s death. e initial search yielded 168, 951 tweets for Verónica Forqué and 57,554 tweets for Álex Casademunt. is volume of information was deemed unmanageable for this study. Consequently, only “veried” tweets were considered (using the “veried tweets” lter).Additionally, the search process included applying lters for “with mentions”, capturing only tweets mentioning @veronicaforque and @alex_casad. Another search was ltered using “with hashtags”.is process led to the downloading of several batches of tweets for each individual/period. e CSV les obtained from Twitter (X) API Twitter Download were subsequently converted into Excel les. Results from the three search types for each individual were consolidated into a single le. Duplicates, blank text entries, entries lacking date references, or containing other errors were removed. is resulted in 1,713 tweets about Verónica Forqué and 1,175 tweets about Álex Casademunt. A stratied random sampling approach was applied to these Tweet sets to achieve a 95% condence interval and a 5% margin of error. is yielded 300 tweets about Álex Casademunt (AC) and 321 tweets about Verónica Forqué (VF).To facilitate visual comparison of the previously presented data, a summary table has been created to consolidate all information from this process (see Table 1). Table 1. e number of posted tweets downloaded, debugged and selectedFile namePosted tweetsDownloaded tweetsDebugged tweets Tweets selected as a sampleVF + veried4,3677,6541,713321VF + veried + mentions1,4552,916VF + veried + hashtags9521,864AC + veried2,1593,0791,175300AC + veried + mentions443733AC + veried + hashtags509811Source: created by the authors
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 137 e information retrieved via Twitter’s (X) API encompassed the following expansions and elds: «id, text, created_at, author_id, in_reply_to_user_id, lang, author, entities, referenced tweets, media y geo», corresponding to the terms «identication, tweet text, created_at_author_id, in_reply_to_user_id, lang, author, entities, refrenced_tweets, media, and geo».e analysis sheet is composed of a set of variables selected from previous studies (Arafat et al., 2022the quality of news reporting of suicide has not been assessed in Iran adequately specially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aim: e study aimed to evaluate the quality of online news reporting of suicidal behavior in Iran against the World Health Organization (WHO; Olivar-Julián et al., 2022; Singh et al., 2022; ienel et al., 2019) and includes the following elds «Message, Date, No. of Characters, No. of Words, Drugs (mention of substances that cause addiction), With Hashtag, With Mention, Retweets, Preventive focus (whether alternatives that could have prevented the incident are presented), Sensationalism (whether WHO recommendations for suicide news reporting are breached, irrelevant data that demean the news or details of the injuries or the event itself cross the threshold of the descriptive) Emotionality (appeal to feelings), Mention of Cause (reference to the cause or reason for the suicide or accident), Gender, Age, Collectives, Internal Blame (the victim’s own), External blame (anyone other than the victim), Conict (situation where two or more people with dierent interests confront each other), Unusual (situation that exceeds the normality of the event itself, Utility, Humour and Sexuality».In the case of the preventive focus, messages proposing preventive measures or suggesting ideas preventing such incidents’ recurrence were considered. For the conict variable, instances causing discomfort due to comments or behaviours of third parties were evaluated, such as the case of the Master Chef programme in the tweets about Verónica Forqué or from specic journalists in those about Álex Casademunt.Regarding the presence of sensationalist features, the methodology used in comparable studies (Bazaco, Redondo and Sánchez-García, 2019; Laroche et al., 2014) has been taken into account, informed by guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO) concerning the detection of sensationalism in reporting on suicides (Artiles, Rodríguez-Caro and Méndez, 2002). Based on these data, a content analysis was conducted on a sample of retrieved tweets (n=625).Intercoder reliability was determined through a pretest of 100 tweets (50 from each analysed account, selected randomly) coded by two of the study’s authors. e results (Cohen’s Kappa) value of 1 (perfect) for all variables except for «sensationalism», which achieved a value of 0.94 (almost perfect). For the statistical analysis, frequency calculations were performed to determine the presence and absence of each variable in tweets related to Álex Casademunt and Verónica Forqué. Pearson’s chi-square test of association was employed to identify specic dierences in the characteristics of messages mentioning each account. is test compares the observed frequency of particular variables (in this case, the presence of specic message characteristics) with a purely probabilistic distribution that corresponds to a directly proportional allocation. erefore, the tests allow us to determine whether the number of messages exhibiting a particular characteristic in each group is higher or lower than would be expected, indicating whether there is a greater tendency to observe specic characteristics in each group. is test provides us with two values: the chi-square and the p-value. e larger the rst and the smaller the second, the less likely it is that the observed distribution occurred by error. e p-value can be interpreted approximately as the probability that such a distribution could occur purely by chance (for instance, a value of 0.05 suggests that such a distribution could occur 5% of the time). e standard signicance threshold of p equal to or less than 0.05 was applied. Cases below this value show a signicant dierence
138 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónin the presence of a particular trait in the tweets about Álex Casademunt and those referring to Verónica Forqué. is means that there is a tendency for a specic set of messages to more frequently exhibit a particular characteristic.is approach will allow us to evaluate how Twitter (X) users behave in their posts following the death of two highly popular individuals who have lost their lives due to markedly dierent causes (a trac accident and suicide). 3. Results3.1 Descriptivese most prevalent feature in the analysed messages was sensationalism, followed by emotionality, conict and mention of the cause of death and in contrast, humour, preventive focus, utility, mention of collectives, sexuality and drugs exhibited minimal presence.A summary table of the aforementioned results has been created, showing both the frequency of these variables in the studied news and their corresponding percentages (see Table 2). Table 2. Frequency and percentages of the characteristics observedCharacteristicsN.º%Sensationalism16326.2Emotionality13020.9Conict11618.7Mention of cause9715.6Age508.1External blame315.0Internal blame132.1Humour111.8Preventive focus101.6Utility81.3
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 139 Collectives30.5Sexuality10.2Drugs00.0Mention of gender00.0Unusual00.0Source: created by the authorse disaggregated data for each individual reveals a greater presence of emotionality, mentions of the cause of death, and reference to the age in the case of Álex Casademunt (AC). Conversely, tweets about Verónica Forqué (VF) demonstrate a higher percentage of internal blame, external blame, utility and humour, albeit with relatively lower values (see Table 3). Table 3. Frequencies and percentages of observed characteristics disaggregatedACVFN.º%N.º%Preventive focus00.0103.1Sensationalism8528.37824.3Emotionality8929.74112.8Mention of cause6020.03711.5Age3712.3134.0Collectives10.320.6Internal blame10.3123.7External blame20.7299.0Conict4916.36720.9
140 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónUtility00.082.5Humour00.0113.4Source: created by the authorsAn analysis of all the data gathered from the tweets about Verónica Forqué reveals the presence of variables such as preventive focus (3.12%), utility 2.49%) and humour(3.43%), which do not show any activity in the case of Álex Casademunt. ese results obtained from the tweets about Verónica Forqué become even more prominent when considering messages that mention and directly appeal to the user (preventive focus 5.33%, utility 5,33% and humour 6.67%).In tweets about Verónica Forqué, higher values of internal blame (3.78%), external blame (9.03%) and conict (20.87%) were recorded, with internal blame slightly higher (5.88%) when those tweets included hashtags. Concerning the conict, the overall percentage of tweets about Verónica Forqué remained consistent (20.87%) when including a hashtag (19.61%) or mentioning a user (22.67%). However, for Álex Casademunt, the general data (16.33%) rose to 21.95% when hashtags were used and decreased to 14.08% when a user was mentioned. Regarding emotionality, the results indicate a higher presence of this variable in Álex Casademunt’s tweets (29.67%) compared to Verónica Forqué (12.77%).e analysis reveals signicant levels of sensationalism in tweets related to both Álex Casademunt (28.33%) and Verónica Forqué (24.30%), with an even higher occurrence of this variable in the tweets that include a mention (Álex Casademunt: 33.80%, Verónica Forqué: 29,33%).On the other hand, for Álex Casademunt (AC), the mention of the cause of his accident is present in 20% of the tweets, increasing to 26.83% when accompanied by a hashtag but decreasing to 11.27% when a specic user is mentioned. In Verónica Forqué’s case (VF), her cause of death is mentioned in 11.53% of the messages, which remains similar when a user is mentioned (12%) but signicantly lower when a hashtag is included (3.92%).Table 4 below summarises these results, indicating the presence of each variable in percentages. Table 4. Percentage proportion of the observed characteristicsFeatureVFTotalACTotalVF HashtagAC HashtagVF MentionAC MentionPreventive focus o3.120.000.000.005.330.00Utility2.490.000.000.005.330.00Humour3.430.001.960.006.670.00
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 141 Sex0.310.001.960.001.330.00Sensationalism24.3028.3313.7319.5129.3333.80Emotionality12.7729.6717.6521.9513.3322.54Mention of cause11.5320.003.9226.8312.0011.27Internal blame3.780.335.880.001.330.00External blame9.030.677.842.4410.670.00Conict20.8716.3319.6121.9522.6714.08Source: created by the authors3.2. Results of the chi-squaree chi-square test conrms the comparisons identied in Table 3. is test did not identify signicant relationships between the analysed cases and the presence of sensationalism χ²(1, N=621)=1.30, p=.254- or conict: -χ²(1, N=621)=2.10, p=.147-.On the contrary, the results were positive when testing the relationship between the cases and the presence of emotionality -χ²(1, N=621)=26.7, p<,001-, a specic mention of the cause of death χ²(1, N=621)=8.45, p=.004-, a reference to the victim’s age: -χ²(1, N=621)=14.4, p<.001-, mention of internal blame: -χ²(1, N=621)=8.77, p=.003-, external blame: -χ²(1, N=621)=22.9, p<.001-, the adoption of a preventive focus: -χ²(1, N=621)=9.50, p=.002-, the presence of utility: -χ²(1, N=621)=7.57, p=.006- and humour: -χ²(1, N=621)=10.5, p=.001-e tweets about Álex Casademunt included emotive features, mentioning the cause of death and his age on more occasions than would be expected in a proportional distribution. Regarding Verónica Forqué, in comparison, a greater tendency has been identied for the tweets to mention responsibility (external and internal), adopt a preventive focus, and exhibit features of utility and humour (see Table 5).
142 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónTable 5. Distribution of the frequencies observed and expected by casePresence of emotionalityYesNoAlex CasademuntObserved21189Expected 23762.8Verónica ForquéObserved28041Expected25467.2Mention of the cause of deathYesNoAlex CasademuntObserved24060Expected25346.9Verónica ForquéObserved28437Expected27150.1Mention of the victim’s ageYesNoAlex CasademuntObserved26337Expected27624.2Verónica ForquéObserved30813Expected29525.8Mention of internal responsibilityYesNoAlex CasademuntObserved2991Expected2946.28Verónica ForquéObserved30912Expected3146.72Mention of external responsibilityYesNo
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 143 Alex CasademuntObserved2982Expected28515.0Verónica ForquéObserved29229Expected30516.0Mention of preventive focusYesNoAlex CasademuntObserved3000Expected2954.83Verónica ForquéObserved31110Expected3165.7Mention of utilityYesNoAlex CasademuntObserved3000Expected2963.86Verónica ForquéObserved3138Expected3174.14HumourYesNoAlex CasademuntObservado3000Expected2955.31Verónica ForquéObservado31011Expected3155.69Source: created by the authors4. DiscussionDespite trac accidents generally receiving more media coverage than suicides to avoid a contagion eect (Werther eect) (Donovan and Boyd, 2021)lo que los medios de comunicación deciden no cubrir puede ser tan signicativo como lo que cubren. En este artículo, examinamos la producción histórica del silencio en el periodismo para comprender mejor el papel que juega la
144 | nº 40, pp. 131-149 | January-June of 2025Participation on Twitter (X) after the death of Verónica Forque and Alex CasademuntISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónamplicación en las prácticas de moderación editorial y de contenido de los medios de comunicación y las plataformas de redes sociales actuales. A través de la lente del silencio estratégico (es decir, el uso de la discreción editorial para el bien público, on the social network Twitter (X), there were more tweets related to the suicide of Verónica Forqué compared to the trac accident of Álex Casademunt. is trend was observed in both the raw data obtained before the nal sample selection and in the nal net data. is result contrasts with other ndings from studies on digital media news events, indicating greater coverage for trac accidents than suicides (Olivar-Julián, Segado-Boj and Díaz-Campo, 2022). Moreover, it is on social media where there is stronger adherence to professional recommendations advocating responsible discussions about suicide to achieve preventive eects- the Papageno eect- and promote utility (Durán and Fernández-Beltrán, 2020). is is evidenced in the results of this study, showing a greater emphasis on prevention and utility in tweets about the suicide (Verónica Forqué) compared to those about the trac accident (Álex Casademunt).is data is signicant because the media behave very dierently and do not usually adhere to the recommendations for journalism professionals by the WHO (Olivar-Julián, Segado-Boj and Díaz-Campo, 2022).An example of this is the COPOE statement on the media coverage of Verónica Forqué’s suicide, which denounces the irresponsible reporting of her death by several media outlets (Confederación de Organizaciones de Psicopedagogía y Orientación de España, 2021).ese contributions are reinforced by the lack of evidence indicating that tweets about suicides can cause a contagion eect (Sinyor et al., 2021)few have explored suicide-related social media events and their potential relationship to suicide deaths. Aims: To determine whether Twitter events were associated with changes in subsequent suicides. Methods: Suicide-related Twitter events that garnered at least 100 tweets originating in Ontario, Canada (July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. Moreover, some studies suggest that the approach of these messages raises awareness and creates a constructive space on social networks where preventive resources can be shared (Spates, Ye and Johnson, 2020).is suggests that the media still needs to shift towards constructive and solutions-oriented journalism. is trend has gained momentum in recent years following a period of self-reection among journalists who have become aware of the negativity often inherent in news reporting (Lough and McIntyre, 2021; Durán et al., 2023).Based on this information, new avenues of preventive research on suicide communication via social networks could be developed using specialised software for text descriptions and language analysis (Rajesh Kumar et al., 2020), sentiment and emotions analysis (Korani and Mouhoub, 2020), lexicon analysis (Sarsam et al., 2021) and the identication of temporal patterns in suicide that can be used as eective detection mechanisms and for timely intervention (Luo et al., 2020).5. Conclusionse results underscore distinct user behaviour among Twitter (X) users in their posts following the deaths of Álex Casademunt (due to a trac accident) and Verónica Forqué (by suicide). Messages about Álex Casademunt show a more signicant presence of emotionality alongside mentions of his age and the cause of his death. Regarding Verónica Forqué, users tend to focus more
doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 145 on internal and external attributions of blame for the incident, accompanied by a more preventive approach that emphasises the utility of the information conveyed. ere are also references to humour related to the actress’s professional life.Concerning the detection of sensationalist traits, both cases exhibit high levels (Álex Casademunt: 28.30%; Verónica Forqué: 24.30%), possibly because both are famous gures. is result is interesting when juxtaposed with the variable “mention of the cause” since the WHO advises against mentioning the cause in news coverage of suicide. erefore, the frequent occurrence of this variable in the study could be considered evidence of sensationalism.erefore, observing that in the case of Álex Casademunt, the mention of the cause of his accident appeared in 20% of the tweets, compared to 11.53% for Verónica Forqué, it could be inferred that in the case of Álex Casademunt, this variable was considered a characteristic of sensationalism (not considered sensationalism in trac accidents). In contrast, it is considered in the case of Verónica Forqué. Hence, this distinction should be acknowledged to dierentiate the signicance of both variables. In any case, the ndings of this research encourage further studies on the behaviour of Twitter (X) users regarding their comments on trac accidents and suicides of famous people in other countries or similar studies that encompass other signicant causes of mortality, such as accidental falls and drownings. 6. Acknowledgementsis article has been translated into English by Sophie Phillips to whom we are grateful for her work.7. Specic contributions of each authorName and SurnameConception and design of the workFrancisco Javier-Olivar, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojMethodologyFrancisco Javier-Olivar, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojData collection and analysisFrancisco Javier-OlivarDiscussion and conclusionsFrancisco Javier-Olivar, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojDrafting, formatting, version review and approvalFrancisco Javier-Olivar, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-Boj
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doxa.comunicación | nº 40, pp. 131-149 January-June of 2025Francisco Javier Olivar-Julián, Jesús Díaz-Campo and Francisco Segado-BojISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 149 eng, C.; Othman, N.; Abdullah, R.; Anawar, S.; Ayop, Z. y Ramli, S. (2021). Detección de ciberacoso en Twitter mediante análisis de sentimiento. Revista internacional de informática y seguridad de redes , 21(11), 1-10.ienel, R.; Bryant, M.; Hazel, G.; Skehan, J. y Tynan, R. (2019). Do Australian media apply recommendations when covering a suicide prevention campaign? Journal of Public Mental Health, 18(2), 135-147. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMH-10-2018-0071Twitter. (2022a). Perl de Álex Casademunt. Recuperado 25 de agosto de 2022, de https://twitter.com/alex_casadTwitter. (2022b). Perl de Verónica Forqué. Recuperado 25 de agosto de 2022, de https://twitter.com/veronicaforqueXie, J. y Liu, L. (2022). Identifying features of source and message that inuence the retweeting of health information on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Public Health, 22(1), 805. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13213-w

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