Chega has more followers and contacts on social networks.

According to a survey conducted by the Internal University of Beira (UBI), Chega is the political party with the most followers on social networks and the one that mobilizes the most followers and has the most interactions in publications.

According to an analysis carried out by Labcom — Comunicação & Artes at UBI, between November 9, the day the President of the Republic announced the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic, and February 19, the end of the debate between the party leaders. The party, chaired by Andre Ventura, had a significant presence on major social media platforms.

Legislative Radar pointed out that in the digital public sphere, despite the importance attributed to institutional “sites”, it is in social networks that parties are investing more and more, and Chega is the party with the largest number of followers on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok and just X (formerly Twitter), where the Liberal Initiative is leading, do not have the strongest presence.

During the analyzed period, which collected more than 11.6 thousand publications and 10.2 million interactions on the platforms most used by the Portuguese, Chega achieved 2.3 million interactions.

“This result is confirmed by good performance on Facebook and Instagram. Their total number of interactions is so large that it exceeds the sum of all other parties,” said study authors Joao Canavillhas and Branco Di Fatima.

Researchers from the university located in Covilha, Castelo Branco district, emphasized that party publications “only have meaning if they are consumed by a connected audience,” and the level of consumption can be measured by the number of likes, shares and comments.

While data points to the party’s 2.1 million social media followers, Chega has 590,000 accounts that follow its platforms.

As for the number of subscribers on YouTube, the political force led by Andre Ventura has 155 thousand.

“The data is so significant that it far exceeds the sum of all other parties: 95,850 accounts,” the report says.

Legislative Radar notes that it is on Tik Tok that the most videos are viewed, more than 2.5 million during the observed period, the platform on which Bloco de Esquerda approaches Chega.

Facebook was the social network on which the most posts were made, and the PKP was the party with the most “posts”, although it is the fourth with the fewest followers on this platform.

The analysis reveals the online presence, especially on social media, of political parties competing in the March 10 legislative elections and shows how political leaders are using the digital public sphere to reach more voters.

“In addition to being able to reach a very diverse audience, these platforms allow us to avoid the mediation of traditional media. For example, a poorly attended rally can become a successful event if images posted on social media are captured from the perspective that most interests the party,” the authors note.

The report also cited preliminary findings from a survey of tertiary students conducted by LabCom UBI, which found that 70% of students said they follow the current national political scenario on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Seven out of ten respondents said social media influences how they vote.

Legislative Radar also analyzed Google searches and concluded that “there is a strong correlation between media coverage of election events and searches” conducted on the search engine.