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[ES] Los seguidores de los deportes de nicho suelen encontrar escaso contenido en los medios de comunicación debido a su limitada audiencia. En cambio, los medios sociales permiten seguir estos deportes específicos. El dinamismo de estos medios se basa en la participación individual, de tal forma que usuarios prominentes conducen la conversación social gracias a su capacidad de influencia. Sin embargo, la complejidad del concepto de influencia dificulta identificar a estos usuarios clave. Nuestra investigación propone una medida de la influencia en Twitter basada en variables obtenidas de la plataforma (número de tweets, número de retweets y número de seguidores) y otras calculadas a partir del Análisis de Redes Sociales (outdegree, indegree y PageRank). Para componer este índice se utilizó el Proceso de Jerarquía Analítica. Esta medida se aplicó a la conversación generada en Twitter en torno a los Mundiales de Ciclismo en Pista 2018. A partir de un corpus de 19.701 tweets, identificamos a los 25 usuarios más influyentes del evento. Los resultados indican que los organizadores y ciclistas participantes jugaron un papel relevante en Twitter. Además, la distribución geográfica de estos usuarios influyentes reflejó la dependencia cultural que tienen los deportes de nicho., [EN] Fans of niche sports generally find minimal content in mainstream media due to their limited audience. Instead, social media offers them the opportunity to follow these specific sports. The dynamics behind digital media are based on individual participation, hence some prominent users lead the social conversation thanks to their capacity to influence. However, the complexity of the concept of influence and the existence of multiple parameters for its measurement make it difficult to identify these key users. Our research proposes a measure of the influence on Twitter based on variables derived from the platform (number of tweets, number of retweets, and number of followers) and from the Social Network Analysis (outdegree, indegree, and PageRank). The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to assign a weight to each variable. This measure of influence was applied to the conversation generated on Twitter around a niche sporting event: the 2018 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. From a 19 701-tweet corpus, we identified the 25 most influential users. The results indicate that the organisers and the participating cyclists played a relevant role in the Twitter conversation. In addition, the geographic distribution of these influential users reflects the cultural dependence of niche sports.

Fans of niche sports generally find minimal content in mainstream media due to their limited audience. Instead, social media offers them the opportunity to follow these specific sports. The dynamics behind digital media are based on individual participation, hence some prominent users lead the social conversation thanks to their capacity to influence. However, the complexity of the concept of influence and the existence of multiple parameters for its measurement make it difficult to identify these key users. Our research proposes a measure of the influence on Twitter based on variables derived from the platform (number of tweets, number of retweets, and number of followers) and from the Social Network Analysis (outdegree, indegree, and PageRank). The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to assign a weight to each variable. This measure of influence was applied to the conversation generated on Twitter around a niche sporting event: the 2018 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. From a 19 701-tweet corpus, we identified the 25 most influential users. The results indicate that the organisers and the participating cyclists played a relevant role in the Twitter conversation. In addition, the geographic distribution of these influential users reflects the cultural dependence of niche sports., Los seguidores de los deportes de nicho suelen encontrar escaso contenido en los medios de comunicación debido a su limitada audiencia. En cambio, los medios sociales permiten seguir estos deportes específicos. El dinamismo de estos medios se basa en la participación individual, de tal forma que usuarios prominentes conducen la conversación social gracias a su capacidad de influencia. Sin embargo, la complejidad del concepto de influencia dificulta identificar a estos usuarios clave. Nuestra investigación propone una medida de la influencia en Twitter basada en variables obtenidas de la plataforma (número de tweets, número de retweets y número de seguidores) y otras calculadas a partir del Análisis de Redes Sociales (outdegree, indegree y PageRank). Para componer este índice se utilizó el Proceso de Jerarquía Analítica. Esta medida se aplicó a la conversación generada en Twitter en torno a los Mundiales de Ciclismo en Pista 2018. A partir de un corpus de 19.701 tweets, identificamos a los 25 usuarios más influyentes del evento. Los resultados indican que los organizadores y ciclistas participantes jugaron un papel relevante en Twitter. Además, la distribución geográfica de estos usuarios influyentes reflejó la dependencia cultural que tienen los deportes de nicho.

As fake news elicits an emotional response from users, whose attention is then monetised, political advertising has a significant influence on its production and dissemination. Facebook ads, therefore, have an essential role in contemporary political communication, not only because of their extensive use in international political campaigns, but also because they address intriguing questions about the regulation of disinformation on social networking sites. This research employs a corpus of 14,684 Facebook ads published by the major national political parties during their campaigns leading up to the two Spanish general elections held in 2019. A manual content analysis was performed on all the visually identical ads so as to identify those containing disinformation and those denouncing it. The topics addressed in these ads were then examined. The results show that the political parties' Facebook ad strategies were akin to those of conventional advertising. Disinformation messages were infrequent and mainly posted by Ciudadanos and VOX. Nonetheless, it is striking that the main topic addressed in the ads was the unity of Spain - precisely the issue of Catalonia's independence. In light of this, it can be deduced that 'traditional' parties are taking longer to renounce classical forms of campaigning than their 'new' counterparts, thus demonstrating that the actors implementing disinformation strategies are not only restricted to the extreme right of the ideological spectrum.

As fake news elicits an emotional response from users, whose attention is then monetised, political advertising has a significant influence on its production and dissemination. Facebook ads, therefore, have an essential role in contemporary political communication, not only because of their extensive use in international political campaigns, but also because they address intriguing questions about the regulation of disinformation on social networking sites. This research employs a corpus of 14,684 Facebook ads published by the major national political parties during their campaigns leading up to the two Spanish general elections held in 2019. A manual content analysis was performed on all the visually identical ads so as to identify those containing disinformation and those denouncing it. The topics addressed in these ads were then examined. The results show that the political parties’ Facebook ad strategies were akin to those of conventional advertising. Disinformation messages were infrequent and mainly posted by Ciudadanos and VOX. Nonetheless, it is striking that the main topic addressed in the ads was the unity of Spain—precisely the issue of Catalonia’s independence. In light of this, it can be deduced that ‘traditional’ parties are taking longer to renounce classical forms of campaigning than their ‘new’ counterparts, thus demonstrating that the actors implementing disinformation strategies are not only restricted to the extreme right of the ideological spectrum.

[EN] In this research, we analysed the data collected when assessing the "leadership ability" in our University in Bachelor's degree in Business Administration (BBA) as it is becoming a strategic skill in all organizations. The objective was to measure this generic skill in students and help them to develop it. For that, we used the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI) scale. This scale is based on Five Exemplary Leadership Practices: i) Model the way; ii) Inspire a shared vision; iii) Challenge the process; iv) Enable others to act; and v) Encourage the heart. Six items measure every practice or dimension. In total, there are thirty items. We analysed 132 students who assessed themselves according to this scale, obtaining a score for every item and dimension. To determine the profile of every student, the different variables considered were "Group", "Gender", "Erasmus students" and "Working or having worked". After collecting the data, we calculated the average, standard deviation and range for every item and dimension. We also conducted a cluster analysis and obtained two different segments. Based on the results, we can propose to each student a different development plan of this soft skill depending on the segment they belong. Therefore, we do not only get general conclusions from the whole group but we can also help our students to develop the "leadership ability" in a personalized way.

[EN] As fake news elicits an emotional response from users, whose attention is then monetised, political advertising has a significant influence on its production and dissemination. Facebook ads, therefore, have an essential role in contemporary political communication, not only because of their extensive use in international political campaigns, but also because they address intriguing questions about the regulation of disinformation on social networking sites. This research employs a corpus of 14,684 Facebook ads published by the major national political parties during their campaigns leading up to the two Spanish general elections held in 2019. A manual content analysis was performed on all the visually identical ads so as to identify those containing disinformation and those denouncing it. The topics addressed in these ads were then examined. The results show that the political parties' Facebook ad strategies were akin to those of conventional advertising. Disinformation messages were infrequent and mainly posted by Ciudadanos and VOX. Nonetheless, it is striking that the main topic addressed in the ads was the unity of Spain-precisely the issue of Catalonia's independence. In light of this, it can be deduced that 'traditional' parties are taking longer to renounce classical forms of campaigning than their 'new' counterparts, thus demonstrating that the actors implementing disinformation strategies are not only restricted to the extreme right of the ideological spectrum.

[EN] Sponsored content on Facebook has become an indispensable tool for implementing political campaign strategies. However, in political communication research, this channel is still unexplored due to its advertising model in which only target audiences are exposed to sponsored content. The launching of the Facebook Ad Library in May 2018 can be considered a turning point in this regard, inasmuch as it now offers users direct access to ads paid for by political parties, among other advertisers. This paper analyzes some aspects of the strategies implemented by six national parties during the campaigns running up to the two general elections held in Spain in 2019, by performing an analysis on a corpus of 14,684 ads downloaded directly from the Facebook Ad Library. It also provides evidence of the different emphasis placed by the parties on sponsored content. For its part, an analysis of ad scheduling shows how the publishing of ads was stepped up as polling day approached, while also revealing the practice of posting political content way in advance of election campaigns.

[EN] Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a relative measure of efficiency applied to a set of decision units and is being used more and more frequently in the supermarket sector. Nonetheless, given how strongly the sector's financials depend on demand, companies need to combine this measurement with trade area information to best manage corporate efficiency. In this paper, the proposal consists of integrating DEA with a clearly articulated, structural typology so that supermarkets, based on their particular characteristics, can determine which variables are most critical for improving their efficiency. This methodology has been validated in the case of one of Spain's five largest supermarket chains. A principal component analysis and a classification analysis were carried out on a series of internal management variables from 61 locations for which DEA had been used to calculate efficiency and to which multiple trade area variables were added using GIS. Some of them are related to the loyalty scheme membership programme. These latter variables described the implantation of the loyalty scheme member programme and were revealed as key elements for the efficiency of the supermarket. This methodology provides marketing profiles that are more adapted to local circumstances, thus allowing companies to set better internal benchmarking objectives.

[EN] Social media has driven a sea change in the way users view and participate in sporting events through the media. In the digital medium, identifying the profiles with the greatest influential capacity is a key issue. Using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), the aim of our research was to identify the most influential Twitter accounts in a major sporting event: The Track Cycling World Cups. The competitions from the years 2016 and 2018 were analysed, downloading all the tweets that included the official hashtag of each event and drawing up the graph of mentions and retweets. After reviewing the literature, activity, authority and popularity were defined as dimensions to assess influence, and two subcriteria were chosen as measures for each of them. Activity was measured by number of tweets and outdegree, authority by retweets and PageRank, and popularity by number of followers and indegree. By consulting experts following the AHP approach, various weights were assigned to these measures, resulting in authority as the most influential. With this weighting, the accounts with the greatest influence on Twitter turned out to be those related to organisation of the event and those of the athletes taking part.

"This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Communication Review on 2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714421.2019.1599642", [EN] During election campaigns, candidates, parties, and media share their relevance on Twitter with a group of especially active users, aligned with a particular party. This paper introduces the profile of ¿party evangelists,¿ and explores the activity and effects these users had on the general political conversation during the 2015 Spanish general election. On that occasion, the electoral expectations were uncertain for the two major parties (PP and PSOE) because of the rise of two emerging parties that were disrupting the political status quo (Podemos and Ciudadanos). This was an ideal situation to assess the differences between the evangelists of established and emerging parties. The paper evaluates two aspects of the political conversation based on a corpus of 8.9 million tweets: the retweet- ing effectiveness, and the sentiment analysis of the overall conver- sation. We found that one of the emerging party¿s evangelists dominated message dissemination to a much greater extent.

[EN] Social media platforms have had a significant impact on the public image of sports in recent years. Through the relational dynamics of the communication on these networks, many users have emerged whose opinions can exert a great deal of influence on public conversation online. This research aims to identify the influential Twitter users during the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships using different variables which, in turn, represent different dimensions of influence (popularity, activity and authority). Mathematical variables of the social network analysis and variables provided by Twitter and Google are compared. First, we calculated the Spearman¿s rank correlation coefficient among all users (n = 20,175) in pairwise comparisons. Next, we performed a qualitative analysis of the top 25 influential users ranked by each variable. As a result, no single variable assessed is sufficient to identify the different kinds of influential Twitter users. The reason that some variables vary so greatly is that the components of influence are very different. Influence is a contextualised phenomenon. Having a certain type of account is not enough to make a user an influencer if they do not engage (actively or passively) in the conversation. Choosing the influencers will depend on the objectives pursued.

[EN] The mediatisation model in politics assumes that media conveys political messages between parties and citizenship, with the risk of promoting issues that frame the electoral content in terms of competition. These dynamics could distract from the debate of ideas and political policies. However, digital media like Twitter provide direct communication channels between parties, candidates and users. The present research explores Twitter content during an electoral campaign focused on the four issues proposed by Patterson (1980) to assess mediatisation: political, policy, campaign and personal (regarding the candidate). The goal of this research study is to evaluate the degree of mediatisation on Twitter using this typology. The research also evaluates the influence of the issue on retweet volume. The study¿s basis was a 15.8 million-tweet corpus obtained during the 2015 Spanish General Election pre-campaign and campaign. This dataset was analysed using an automatic classification system. The results highlighted a predominance of policy issues during both the pre- campaign and campaign, except for the two televised debates, during which campaign issues were the most prevalent. On the election night, users commented much more on political issues. Finally, the kind of issue most likely to be retweeted was policy issues.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Contemporary Social Science on 2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21582041.2017.1367833., [EN] The infotainment format offers candidates an informal setting to show a more personal side of themselves to the electorate, opening themselves up to potential voters. An example of media hybridisation, social networks users can immediately comment on infotainment television programmes, a process known as second screening. These second screeners tend to be especially active in politics. This paper analyses the immediate emotional reaction of these users as they watch infotainment programmes that air during the campaign or pre-campaign seasons and feature political candidates as guests. We have confirmed that second screeners react more emotionally towards the candidate when his or her party is mentioned, and less emotionally when the host displays an aggressive attitude through his or her non-verbal communication. When issues related to the candidate¿s personal lives are discussed, users¿ emotional reactions improve slightly. The relevance of this research stems from the fact that we are witnessing the consolidation of a politics that increasingly strays from ideological questions, and instead focuses on more emotional and personal issues.

[EN] Candidates, parties, media and citizens have the same ability to post tweets. For this reason, mapping the dynamics of interaction among users is essential to evaluate the processes of influence in an electoral campaign. However, characterising these aspects requires methodologies that consider the interconnections generated by users globally. The discipline of social network analysis provides the concepts of centrality and modularity, both very suitable for the context of network communication. This article analyses the political conversation on Twitter during the 2015 and 2016 General Elections in Spain, in which four candidates with significant popularity in the electorate participated. Two corpora of 8.9¿million and 9.7¿million tweets were collected from each campaign, respectively, to analyse the networks of mentions and retweets. The network of mentions appears more blurred than that of retweets, allowing us to better estimate users¿ partisan preference. The graphs of the network of retweets show a strong internal activity within clusters, and the proximity between them reflects the ideological axis of each party.

[EN] The general aim of this research is to assess the “teamwork ability" in university students from a 180º approach. For this, we have obtained the selfassessment and coevaluation of this skill, using the CATME-BARS scale, in university students of "Marketing Management" of the Degree of Business Administration and Management at Universitat Politècncia de València. Next, we have contrasted whether this difference depends on a series of descriptive variables of the students that are being analyzed. The variables are: "Group" (morning, afternoon, English, double Degree of Business Administration and Management-Telecommunications Engineering), "Sex", "Erasmus" (if the student is Erasmus or not) and "Work" (if the student works or has worked in the last 2 years). No significant differences were found for any of them. Therefore, it could be concluded that the students analyzed have a self-perception of the “teamwork ability" aligned with the perception of their classmates, [ES] El objetivo general de esta investigación es evaluar la competencia “trabajo en equipo” en estudiantes universitarios desde un enfoque 180º. Para ello, hemos obtenido la autoevaluación y coevaluación de esta competencia, utilizando la escala CATME-BARS, en estudiantes universitarios de “Dirección Comercial” del Grado de ADE de la Universitat Politècncia de València. A continuación, hemos contrastado si esta diferencia depende de una serie de variables descriptivas de los estudiantes que se están analizando. Las variables son: “Grupo” (mañana, tardes, inglés, doble ADE- Ingeniero de Telecomunicación), “Sexo”, “Erasmus” (si es Erasmus o no) y “Trabajo” (si trabaja o ha trabajado en los últimos 2 años). No se han encontrado diferencias significativas para ninguna de ellas. Por tanto, se podría concluir que los estudiantes analizados tienen una autopercepción de la competencia “trabajo en equipo” alineada con la percepción de sus compañeros.

[EN] This study analyses appearances by political candidates on infotainment television, as well as the emotional response elicited by these appearances among Twitter users during the pre-campaign season for Spain¿s 2015 General Elections. To that end, we first perform a qualitative analysis of the register and the tone of the interviews. Then, we use the SentiStrength algorithm, optimized for the specific context of our research, to analyse the sentiment of the tweets published during the airing of the programs. This multimethod approach allows us to determine the level of interaction between two distinct but complementary communication rationales. Among other things, we conclude that the political candidates do not always benefit from appearing on entertainment programs. Nonetheless, the sentiment of tweets may still be positive, regardless of the outcome of the candidate¿s appearance.

[EN] Sentiment analysis on Twitter offers possibilities of great interest to evaluate the currents of opinion disseminated through this medium. The huge volumes of texts require tools able to automatically process these messages without losing reliability. This paper describes two different types of approaching this problem. The first strategy is based on Supervised Learning processes, developed in the field of artificial intelligence. Its application requires some tools from natural language processing along with a classifed corpus as a starting point. The second approach is based on polarity dictionaries. SentiStrength tool is located in this line. It is increasingly applied to studies of Twitter in English. The paper assesses the most advanced studies using each of these approaches for analyzing tweets in Spanish. Finally, the advantages and limitations of each of these approaches for researching political communication are assessed. While supervised learning allows taking into account the context thanks to its ability to detect patterns of words, the researcher who uses this approach requires having data analyst skills to better refine the process. Instead, SentiStrength is more oriented to the semantic content of the terms of the message. It requires more of a competence in linguistics by the researcher. The main conclusion of this study is that both automated methods of analysis can not do without a demanding manual coding if they are to be used reliably in research., [ES] El análisis del sentimiento en los mensajes publicados en Twitter ofrece posibilidades de gran interés para evaluar las corrientes de opinión difundidas a través de este medio. Los enormes volúmenes de textos requieren de herramientas capaces de procesar automáticamente estos mensajes sin perder fiabilidad. Este artículo describe dos tipos de técnicas para abordar este problema. La primera estrategia se basa en los procesos de Aprendizaje Automático Supervisado. Su aplicación requiere integrar algunas herramientas del Procesamiento de Lenguajes Naturales y tomar como punto de partida un corpus clasifcado. El segundo enfoque está basado en diccionarios de polaridad. En esta línea se sitúa la herramienta de SentiStrength, la cual se está aplicando cada vez más a los estudios de Twitter en inglés. El artículo evalúa los estudios más avanzados que utilizan cada uno de estos enfoques para el análisis de los tweets en castellano. Por último, se señalan las ventajas y limitaciones de cada uno de estos enfoques para su aplicación a la investigación en comunicación política. Si bien el aprendizaje automático supervisado permite tener en cuenta el contexto, el investigador requiere competencias de analista de datos con el fin de afinar mejor el proceso. En cambio, SentiStrength está más orientado al contenido semántico de los términos del mensaje, y se requiere más bien una competencia en lingüística por parte del investigador. La principal conclusión es que ambos métodos automáticos de análisis no pueden prescindir de una exigente codificación manual si se desea utilizarlos con fiabilidad en la investigación.