Alexander Frame

The EU-Election on Twitter: Comparison of German and French Candidates’ Tweeting styles

In this chapter the political implications of social media and their affordances for political discourse are examined. The focus is on candidates’ Twitter usage during the 2014 EU elections in France and in Germany. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of tweets collected during a period of four weeks have been carried out on the basis of the functional operator model of Twitter. The model serves as a framework for assessing users’ tweeting styles, which can range between personal-interactive and topical-informative. The comparison of French and German top candidates’ tweeting styles, which mainly appear to be „personal-interactive“, however questions the candidates’ alleged efforts to enter into dialogue with their voters.

Communication and PR from a Cross-Cultural Standpoint

Contents: Stuart Reid/Helen Spencer-Oatey: Beyond Stereotypes: Utilising a Generic Competency Approach to Develop Intercultural Effectiveness - Alex Frame: Cultures, Identities and Meanings in Intercultural Encounters: a Semiopragmatics Approach to Cross-Cultural Team-Building - Anne Gregory: Practical Issues in Cross-Cultural Research Projects - Valerie Carayol: New Challenges in Cross-Cultural Communication Studies - Iris Rittenhofer: Interview at the Level of the Signifier: An Interplay-of-Practice Approach to Culturing Organizations - Kim Tsai: Seeking Affective Spaces in Cross-Cultural Research - Caroline E. M. Hodges: The Meaning(s) and Making(s) of PR: The Potential for Ethnography within Public Relations Research - Sorin Nastasia: Public Relations in France and Romania: a Critical Studies and Mixed Method Analysis - Graeme Sterne: Public Relations, Coming of Age or a Hidden Art? A New Zealand Perspective.

Tweets from the Campaign Trail

Hailed by many as a game-changer in political communication, Twitter has made its way into election campaigns all around the world. The European Parliamentary Elections, taking place simultaneously in 28 countries, give us a unique comparative vision of the way the tool is used by candidates in different national contexts. This volume is the fruit of a research project bring-ing together scholars from 6 countries, specialised in communication science, media studies, linguistics and computer science. It seeks to characterise the way Twitter was used during the 2014 European Election campaign, providing insights into communication styles and strategies observed in different languages and outlining methodological solutions for collecting and ana-lysing political tweets in an electoral context.

Leader of my Heart! Use of Twitter by Leaders’ Partners during Election Campaigns

This paper examines the use of Twitter by six companions of political leaders, during the presidential elections in France and in the US (2012) and the UK general elections (2010). The leaders’ companions differ in the way they seek to portray an image of the private lives of their public ‘other halves’. National differences but also divergences in communication strategies can be seen to affect the themes adopted and the degree of intimacy exhibited.