Twitter and Politics: An Analysis of the Account of Former Peruvian President @MartinVizcarraC Before and During the Pandemic

Abstract

This research addresses the dynamics that developed on the official Twitter account of Peru’s former president, Martín Vizcarra, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the analysis, four trends crucial to political activity via Twitter are explored. These are the predominance of the emotional and affective component, the growing influence of fake news, deepening polarization that prevents dialogue, and the use of the platform as an information window. Results show that the pandemic effected a change in the account’s dynamics and audience participation: posting frequency on the @MartinVizcarraC account decreased, but Twitter users’ engagement more than doubled compared with the pre-pandemic period. In addition, the account strongly tended toward predominance of the emotional and affective component and informative value was the second most relevant topic for Vizcarra’s account. The communication of @MartinVizcarraC was unidirectional, focusing on the dissemination of content and avoiding conversation.