Twitter in Mexican Politics: Messages to People or Candidates?

Twitter has reached Mexican politics in the presidential election. Despite the fact candidates have a twitter account to send messages; we propose the question how they use it to communicate with citizens? This exploratory research provides evidence that Mexican presidential candidates are only sending messages for politicians and not for citizens. We collected and analyzed 618 tweets from the three most important political parties: PRI, PAN and PRD, from November 2011 to February 2012. Using a five category framework, we found that most candidates sent thank and regret messages, but very few messages to their militancy and citizens. We found that the lack of information about this technological tool has disabled Mexican politicians to take advantage of this tool. Finally we hope this research contributes to analyze the impact of social media in Mexican Politics in a more systematic way.