This week in the Digital Debate, we analyzed what was published regarding the Constituent
process and the work of the Convention on Twitter. The debate on the social networks was strongly marked by the presidential elections that happened this Sunday, December 18, and by the activities of the Constituents during the territorial week.

Summary

95,800 tweets
80,500 retweets (84%)
7,300 replies (8%)

Words

The words used the most this week in the debate on Twitter were “boric”, “campaña”, “proceso”, “chile”, “domingo”, and “candidato”.

These works are strongly related to the second round of the presidential elections that happened this Sunday, December 18, between the candidate for Apruebo Dignidad, Gabriel Boric, and the candidate for the Christian Social Front, José Antonio Kast.

One of the most important topics mentioned in the debate about the two candidates was their posture regarding the constituent process if elected. On one hand, José Antonio Kast has been an important detractor of the process, prompting the rejection of the idea of writing a new Constitution. On the other hand, Gabriel Boric helped initiate the process and was part of the Acuerdo por la Paz, and helped defend
and support the work of the Constituents throughout the process.

Hashtags

The major hashtags used on Twitter regarding the constituent process this week were #boricpresidentedechile, #boricpresidente, #feministasydisidenciasxboric, #valdiviacl, #observalosríos, #antofagasta, and #debateanatel.

Like in the word cloud, the most used hashtags are related to the presidential election. The last presidential debate happened on Monday, and Thursday was the last day for legal campaigning, when the social networks were filled with comments related to the topic.

This week, there were no hashtags directly associated with the work of the Convention, except for #territorioconstituyente, used to talk about the activities of the Constituents during the territorial week of the Convention.

Timeline

The highest frequency of tweets per hours was registered on Thursday, December 16, at 3 pm. In addition to being the last day for legal campaigning, when the two candidates organized massive acts to wrap up their campaigns, that Thursday was also marked by the death of the widow of the dictator Augusto Pinochet, a fact widely discussed on social networks. The two candidates made references to the woman who was the author and accomplice of several crimes during the military dictatorship in Chile.

Tweets with the most retweets

The tweets with the highest number of retweets this week were published by the accounts of @Cris_Sarabia, the Constituent Teresa Marinovic, and @Awkan986.

The accounts of @Cris_Sarabia and @Awkan986 published tweets criticizing the media outlet Biobío after they published a news article related to the toxicology testing presented by the candidate Gabriel Boric during the presidential debate at Anatel on Monday, December 13, when he was reprehended by his opponent. The two publications remembered the note published by the media outlet about an alleged “wild party” that was organized by a group of Constituents at the Hotel Pettra de Concepción during their regional stay at Biobío, which was denied both by the Constituents and by the employees at the hotel.

The user @Cris_Sarabia criticized the desire for disinformation shown by one of the journalists: “Do you remember the ‘party’ of the convention, which was never proved due to a lack of witnesses? @Francotirador from @biobio planted a topic as a journalist, like Mario Vera did today with the toxicology test, is @biobio’s editorial line in charge of planting fake news?”, he published.

In turn, the user @Awkan986 published in his account: “Stop crying, he only said the journalist was irresponsible at @biobio, the same outlet that published about the Constituent party. They never recognized their lies”. This tweet made a reference to the criticism targeting the candidate Gabriel Boric after he called a Biobío journalist “irresponsible” for leaving the press office after the debate after questioning the candidate about the validity of the toxicology test he submitted.

In turn, the tweet made by Teresa Marinovic was a reply to another tweet made by the user @IvoGodoyFer in what seems to be a video where apparently the Constituent Jorge Baradit was campaigning for Gabriel Boric. Teresa Marinovic wrote in her account: “This is why I voted against the ‘territorial weeks’ of the Convention. I said they were only a way to do more campaigning. NO SOONER SAID THAN DONE!”, she wrote.

Tweet 1:
Do you remember the“party” of the convention, which was never proved due to a lack of witnesses?
@Francotirador from @biobio planted a topic as a journalist, like Mario Vera did today with the toxicology test, is @biobio’s editorial line in charge of planting fake news?

Tweet 2:
This is why I voted against the“territorial weeks” of the Convention. I said they were only a way to do more campaigning. NO SOONER SAID THAN DONE!

Retweet:
How is work, Baradir..? Do you need a raise to advance with the new constitution..? @tere_marinovic @joseantoniokast

Tweet 3:
Stop crying, he only said the journalist was irresponsible at @biobio, the same outlet that published about the Constituent party. They never recognized their lies

Analysis of networks and communities

This week, and unlike the latest publications on Debate Digital, the pink community was larger and had more interconnections than the blue community. However, the Constituent Teresa Marinovic remained the most influential account in both communities.

After Teresa Marinovic, the most influential accounts last week were Bernardo Fontaine (@berfontaine), @Awkan986, @Cris_Sarabia, @Mister_Wolf_0, @observalosrios, the Vice President of the Convention’s Board of Directors, Jaime Bassa (@jaime_bassa), the Congressman for Convergência Social, Diego Ibáñez (@diego_ibanez), the Constituent Jorge Baradit (@baradit), and the Constituent Ignacio Achurra (@ignacioachurra).

Methodological note

The analysis was carried out using the Trendsmap tool with the following query: (constituyente OR constituyentes OR constitucional OR constitución OR constitucion OR convencion OR convención OR convencionales OR convencional) OR #convencionconstituyente OR #convenciónconstituyente OR #convencionconstitucional OR #convenciónconstitucional OR #convencion OR #convención) -tribunal

Through this analysis, we sought to filter conversations on Twitter related to the work of the Constitutional Convention and the constituent process between Monday, December 13 at midnight and Friday, December 17 at 7:45 am. The word tribunal (court) was removed from the search so as not to include conversations related to candidate Gabriel Boric’s signature of an appeal sent to the Constitutional Court to prevent the deportation of foreigners, a situation that was recalled on the TVN program “Candidate, your time has come” last week. We collected data from conversations that were produced by users located in Chile and in Spanish.

* The Digital Democracy Room is a project of FGV DAPP in Brazil in partnership with Animal Político, Bolivia Verifica, Chequeado, Confidencial, Espacio Público, Linterna Verde and Ojo Público. It’s goal is to monitor and analyze the digital conversations regarding the electoral context.

The analysis is available the website of Espacio Público here.