New Settings for Political Discussion: Parties Using WhatsApp during the April 2019 Electoral Campaign in Spain

The democratization of technology has allowed citizens and political parties to find new avenues for dialogue and social debate. Actually, political leaders "have begun to govern with their mobiles." Among the multiple options for dialogue, instant messaging applications, such as WhatsApp, have grown firm as a standard tool for parties' and candidates' communication strategies. Nonetheless, there is no theoretical approach from academic research that helps to understand this phenomenon. Consequently, this research attempts to scientifically analyze how political parties in Spain employed these tools during the campaign for the general elections in April 2019. Building on previous studies related to the use of this microblogging in electoral contexts in Brazil, India, or Nigeria, this pioneering empirical study focuses on the first "WhatsApp election" in Spain due to its role as a leading social network with over 25 million users. This research's core lies in the qualitative analysis of all the content created on WhatsApp by the five major political parties (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol, Partido Popular, Vox, Ciudadanos, and Unidas Podemos) that participated in these elections. This empirical and comparative research addresses specific categories, such as activity level, content type, links to other social media, the primary purpose of the content, fake and harmful content, and interaction level. Results showed a different use of this tool by Spanish political parties, with traditional parties showing the highest level of activity. Furthermore, although audiovisual content was a frequent resource, the Spanish campaign was not marked by an aggressive dissemination of false content.