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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Media Governance and the Public Sphere
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1545634
This article is part of the Research TopicCorporations as Disinformation Actors: From Digital Propaganda to Dark PRView all 4 articles
Analyzing X mentions to uncover micro-clusters interfering in political campaigns: a case study during the Spanish elections
Provisionally accepted- Universidad Europea de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
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This article presents a novel approach to investigating coordinated influence efforts within political discussions on social networks, focusing on the analysis of X mentions during the Spanish regional elections in May 2023. Drawing from a substantial dataset of 345,000 messages from 17,074 unique authors, we employ advanced quantitative methods to identify micro-clusters—groups of users engaging in coordinated amplification through distribution lists, ensuring synchronized messaging to amplify targeted narratives. By analyzing message mentions, we detect patterns of coordination aimed at political figures, journalists, and influential personas, revealing attempts to manipulate and destabilize political discourse. Network maps generated with Gephi software visualize these interactions, highlighting homophilic behavior and feedback loops that drive message virality. These findings advance the understanding of digital tactics used to influence political outcomes and emphasize the need for robust detection mechanisms to safeguard public discourse during electoral periods.
Keywords: political communication, Distribution lists, Virality, social networks analysis and mining, Gephi visualization analysis, big data & analytics, Twitter - content analysis
Received: 16 Dec 2024; Accepted: 18 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 García-Ull, Lamirán-Palomares and Broseta-Dupre. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Francisco José García-Ull, Universidad Europea de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
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