Semiosis between words and images on Twitter. How are meanings built by the presidential candidates of the 2017 elections in Chile?

Abstract

In the last decade, with the explosion of the use of social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), different social actors have begun to use them. In particular, Twitter has played a  leading role in presidential campaigns around the world and Chile has not been the exception. Regarding the research on Twitter in the field of discourse analysis, these are mainly concentrated on three lines: interaction, argumentation and use of the hashtag, however, there are no studies that are interested in the relationships of meanings that are produced between images and words (intersemiosis) in a tweet. Therefore, we seek to describe the intersemiotic relations between words and static images that are used in the tweets of the 8 candidates of the 2017 presidential elections in Chile. The methodology considers a qualitative approach. The results showed that the prevailing relations are: Elaboration and Evidence, the ones that will be associated with the measurement of interaction that every candidate obtained.