Alex Frame is Associate Professor in Communication Science at the University of Burgundy (Dijon) where he works within the TIL research group (EA4182).

Arnaud Mercier is Professor of Communication Science and the Director of the French Press Institute (IFP, Paris).

Gilles Brachotte is Associate Professor in Communication Science at the University of Burgundy (Dijon) and member of the CIMEOS-3S research group (EA4177).

Caja Thimm is Professor of Media Studies and Intermediality at the University of Bonn.

Twitter was extensively used during the 2014 European Parliamentary elections. This volume analyses campaign-related microblogging activity in six countries, providing insights into communication styles and strategies observed in different languages and outlining methodological solutions for collecting and analysing political tweets.

Alex Frame, Arnaud Mercier, Gilles Brachotte & Caja Thimm: General Introduction - Part 1: Studying Tweet campaigns: methodological issues - Eric Leclercq, Marinette Savonnet, Thierry Grison, Sergey Kirgizov & Ian Basaille: SNFreezer: a Platform for Harvesting and Storing Tweets in a Big Data Context - Dario Compagno: 2. Families of practices. A bottom-up approach to differentiate how French candidates made use of Twitter during the 2014 European Campaign - Tatiana Kondrashova & Alex Frame: 3. Exploring the dialogical dimension of political tweets: A qualitative analysis of 'Twitter styles' of UK candidates during the 2014 EU Parliamentary Elections - Nanta Novello Paglianti: 4. Twitter et la politique : strategies de communication de candidats et espace public - Part 2: Tweet campaign argumentation - Arnaud Mercier: 5. Les figures de l'ennemi dans les tweets-polemiques des forces protestataires francaises durant la campagne de mai 2014 - Marina Villa: 6. Les discours sur l'Europe dans la tweet-campagne en Italie - Elena Albu: 7. Love Britain? Vote UKIP! The Pragmatics of Electoral Tweetsduring the European Elections 2014 - Part 3: Integration of Twitter in political strategies in different national contexts - Frederic Junger & Gilles Brachotte: 8. Elections europeennes de mai 2014 : etude des donnees du corpus francais de TEE 2014 afin d'apprehender les usages des candidats et la circulation de l'information sur Twitter - Caja Thimm, Jessica Einspanner-Pflock & Mario Anastasiadis: 9. Twitter during the 2014 European Elections in Germany - Analyzing politicians' campaigning strategies - Vittorio Cobianchi, Maria Francesca Murru & Marina Villa 10. Twitter and double screen in Italy during the 2014 European elections - Fernando Bonete Vizcaino, Elena Cebrian Guinovart & Tamara Vazquez Barrio: 11. Pablo Iglesias' Tweeting Style: Unsuccessfully Aspiring to Renew Spanish Political Discourse - List of Contributors

Hailed by many as a game-changer in political communication, Twitter has made its way into election campaigns all around the world. The European Parliamentary elections, taking place simultaneously in 28 countries, give us a unique comparative vision of the way the tool is used by candidates in different national contexts. This volume is the fruit of a research project bringing together scholars from 6 countries, specialised in communication science, media studies, linguistics and computer science. It seeks to characterise the way Twitter was used during the 2014 European election campaign, providing insights into communication styles and strategies observed in different languages and outlining methodological solutions for collecting and analysing political tweets in an electoral context.