Digital Ethnography of Political-Social Cyberactivism. Case: 2019 Spanish General Elections

Abstract

The article analyzes the inclusion of digital anthropology and ethnography in the study of the audience online that conditions cyber politics with the use of social networks on the Internet. For some years now, the political cyber activism of users, carried out through social media, has played an important role in strengthening or supporting movements, parties and political leaders, directly influencing the results of the various electoral elections in different parts of the world. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is important to take into account the aforementioned disciplines, which constitute paradigms in the emergence of new political movements in the network and which, when applied to social networks, make up an increasingly necessary study cocktail. For the present work, a bibliographic review of the description and fundamental characteristics of digital anthropology and ethnography is carried out and the web pages of the main social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) of political parties and leaders in the general elections have been taken in Spain, on 2019. The result obtained suggests an increasingly specialized use of ethnographic and anthropological techniques in the study of social networks in political or social spheres, and, consequently, their use in the study of media audiences on the Internet.