Parliamentary Commmunication in the Digital Society: From the Press Release to the Twet

Abstract

In the last years, the growing interest in politics has positioned the (spanish Parliament) as one of the most active press centers in the whole country. It has also widened the target of people who want to be informed about the activities of the government institutions. In this context, the Communication Department establishes, as one of its main priorities, convert the people´s curiosity in an opportunity to project the Parliament´s voice, to distinguish it of the rest of the media and to make this voice useful and significant for the citizens. Social media offers us a unique opportunity to interact with the audience without intermediaries, to show, with rigor, professionalism, journalistic accuracy and, last but not least, with inmediacy, what is happening in the Chamber, to explain and put in context those aspects which are highlighted in the headlines, but also to show those topics which sometimes do not claim the attention of the media. This article addresses the strategy of digital communication of the Chamber, from its beginnings to the present state of art, providing an overview of the different stages along the last decades, and shows all the possibilities that social network offers to increase the confidence and the degree of identification of the citizens with the institution in which all of us are represented.