The appropriation of Twitter as a scenario for liquid democracy. Case: Colombian electoral campaign 2018-2022

Abstract

This paper argues in favor of the manifestation of a liquid democracy on Twitter during the Colombian presidential election campaigns (2018-2022) through a qualitative analysis of over 2484 responses to the candidates’ messages. Users appropriated the platform through the use of memes, fake news and hashtags (#) to attack or defend the politicians, ignoring any of their campaign proposals. A flowchart was created to illustrate the emergence of subjectivities that emerge during political discussions on the platform, such as saboteur/troll, or cyberactivists. Likewise, the profiles of the candidates were constructed under a marketing strategy appropriate to this new cyber-citizenship. The findings support a lack of political debate or discussion and a simulated political participation that does not guarantee the exercise of democracy