A Symbolic Clash among the National Identities in the Basque Autonomous Community: Political Parties, Twitter and UEFA European Championship 2016
A Symbolic Clash among the National Identities in the Basque Autonomous Community: Political Parties, Twitter and UEFA European Championship 2016

Summary/Abstract: As we can observe on a daily basis, sports and politics are not strictly separated. In addition, sport has become a very effective tool for political parties that employ sport to declare their stance or to communicate with the public. The main objective of this article is to analyse how relevant political parties represented in the Basque Parliament used Twitter to comment on the UEFA European Football Championship in the context of their national identities. In addition, during that time the Spanish General Election took place making the Euro the perfect tool for the political parties to influence and mobilize their voters via Twitter. Based on the content analysis of the official Twitter accounts of these political parties, one may assume that political parties in the Basque Autonomous Community would use the reference to the famous sporting event as a tool that could help them construct and restore national sentiment in society. The main assumption, confirmed at the end, is that Basque nationalist political parties project their ideas through sport in a different way than centrists.

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