Presidentas Twitteras: The Social Media Use of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Dilma Rousseff

This chapter analyzes the use of Twitter by two female Latin American presidents: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina) and Dilma Rousseff (Brazil). The analysis proceeds along the following two lines of inquiry: First, we examine whether these presidents use Twitter to broadcast information in a traditional way or deploy the interactive features provided by the tool to engage in a “digital dialogue” with their followers. Second, we use content analysis to identify for which purposes these presidents use Twitter (i.e. the functions and style of their tweets) and to what extent they tweet about gender related topics (i.e. gender policy advocacy). The study is based on data from two different time periods (during and beyond electoral campaigns). forthcoming in Došek, Tomáš; Freidenberg, Flavia; Caminotti, Mariana and Muñoz-Pogossian, Betilde (Eds): Women, Politics, and Democracy in Latin America, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.