Issue Salience on Twitter During Swedish Party Leaders' Debates

Abstract

The objective of this study is to contribute knowledge about formation of political agendas on Twitter during mediated political events, using the party leaders’ debates in Sweden before the general election of 2014 as a case study. Our findings show that issues brought up during the debates were largely mirrored on Twitter, with one striking discrepancy. Contrary to our expectations, issues on the left-right policy dimension were more salient on Twitter than in the debates, whereas issues such as the environment, immigration and refugees, all tied to a liberal-authoritarian value axis, were less salient on Twitter.