1887
Volume 8, Issue 2
  • ISSN 2542-3851
  • E-ISSN: 2542-386X
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Research shows that emoji are not only used to express emotions but also to enhance the illocutionary force of messages or build social rapport (Pérez-Sabater 2019; Sampietro 2019; Alfano et al. 2021). The interaction between text content and emoji can influence perceptions of both the message and the sender (Butterworth et al. 2019; Hand et al. 2022). However, in professional contexts, emoji may negatively impact perception of competence (Glikson, Cheshin and van Kleef 2018). In the case of political figures, where their profile may intend to show a combination of friendliness and professionality, the use of emoji becomes particularly relevant. This paper examines the use of emoji in the Twitter/X bios of 350 Spanish members of parliaments (2019–2023). Results reveal that male right-wing politicians use emoji more frequently, while left-wing usage is mainly by women. Both groups primarily use emoji to emphasize political messages and personal information, highlighting their role in shaping politicians’ online personas.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ip.00127.mai
2025-07-11
2026-03-09
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alfano, Mark, Ritsaart Reimann, Ignacio Ojea Quintana, Marc Cheong, and Colin Klein
    2021 “The affiliative use of emoji and hashtags in the Black Lives Matter movement: A Twitter case study” [Preprint]. 10.21203/rs.3.rs‑741674/v1
    https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-741674/v1 [Google Scholar]
  2. Amaghlobeli, Natia
    2012 “Linguistic features of typographic emoticons in SMS discourse.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies2(2): 348–354. 10.4304/tpls.2.2.348‑354
    https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.2.348-354 [Google Scholar]
  3. Androutsopoulos, Jannis
    2023 “Commentary: Face-work in the digital ecology.” Journal of Pragmatics2041: 1–5. 10.1016/j.pragma.2022.12.002
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2022.12.002 [Google Scholar]
  4. Aretz, Wera, and Katja Mierke
    2019 “Seriously?! Prevalence and motives of using emoji in job-related communication and their effect on perceived executive characteristics.” Journal of Business and Media Psychology1(1): 43–48.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Aull, Bethany
    2019 “A study of phatic emoji use in WhatsApp communication.” Internet Pragmatics2(2): 206–232. 10.1075/ip.00029.aul
    https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00029.aul [Google Scholar]
  6. Bai, Qiyu, Qi Dan, Zhe Mu, and Maokun Yang
    2019 “A systematic review of emoji: Current research and future perspectives.” Frontiers in Psychology101, 476737. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02221
    https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02221 [Google Scholar]
  7. Beltrán, Javier, Aina Gallego, Alba Huidobro, Enrique Romero, and Lluis Padro
    2021 “Male and female politicians on Twitter: A machine learning approach.” European Journal of Political Research60(1): 239–251. 10.1111/1475‑6765.12392
    https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12392 [Google Scholar]
  8. Berrocal-Gonzalo, Salomé, Patricia Zamora-Martínez, and Ana González-Neira
    2023 “Politainment on Twitter: Engagement in the Spanish legislative elections of April 2019.” Media and Communication11(2): 163–175. 10.17645/mac.v11i2.6292
    https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i2.6292 [Google Scholar]
  9. Buccoliero, Luca, Elena Bellio, Giulia Crestini, and Alessandra Arkoudas
    2016 “Twitter and politics: Evidence from the US presidential elections 2016.” Journal of Marketing Communications26(1): 88–114. 10.1080/13527266.2018.1504228
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2018.1504228 [Google Scholar]
  10. Butterworth, Sarah E., Traci A. Giuliano, Justin White, Lizette Cantu, and Kyle C. Fraser
    2019 “Sender gender influences emoji interpretation in text messages.” Frontiers in Psychology101, 431196. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00784
    https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00784 [Google Scholar]
  11. Calero Vaquera, Maria Luisa
    2014 “El discurso del ‘WhatsApp’: entre el ‘messenger’ y el ‘SMS’ [The ‘WhatsApp’ discourse: Between ‘Messenger’ and ‘SMS’].” Oralia: Análisis del discurso oral171: 87–116. 10.25115/oralia.v17i.8001
    https://doi.org/10.25115/oralia.v17i.8001 [Google Scholar]
  12. Castanho Silva, Bruno, and Sven-Oliver Proksch
    2022 “Politicians unleashed? Political communication on Twitter and in parliament in Western Europe.” Political Science Research & Methods10(4): 776–792. 10.1017/psrm.2021.36
    https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2021.36 [Google Scholar]
  13. Cavalheiro, Bernardo P., David L. Rodrigues, and Marília Prada
    2023 “Who (and with whom) uses more emoji? Exploring individual, relational, and motivational characteristics driving emoji use.” Telematics and Informatics831, 102023. 10.1016/j.tele.2023.102023
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2023.102023 [Google Scholar]
  14. Chen, Zhenpeng, Xuan Lu, Wei Ai, Huoran Li, Qiaozhu Mei, and Xuanzhe Liu
    2018 “Through a gender lens: Learning usage patterns of emoji from large-scale android users.” Proceedings of the 2018 World Wide Web Conference: 763–772. 10.1145/3178876.3186157
    https://doi.org/10.1145/3178876.3186157 [Google Scholar]
  15. Coesemans, Roel, and Barbara De Cock
    2017 “Self-reference by politicians on Twitter: Strategies to adapt to 140 characters.” Journal of Pragmatics1161: 37–50. 10.1016/j.pragma.2016.12.005
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.12.005 [Google Scholar]
  16. Czestochowska, Justyna, Kristina Gligoric, Maxime Peyrard, Yann Mentha, Michał Bien, Andrea Grütter, Anita Auer, Aris Xanthos, and Robert West
    2022 “On the context-free ambiguity of emoji.” Proceedings of the 16th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2022): 1388–1392. 10.1609/icwsm.v16i1.19393
    https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v16i1.19393 [Google Scholar]
  17. Danesi, Marcel
    2016The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet. London: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Darics, Erika
    2012 “Instant messaging in work-based virtual teams: the analysis of non-verbal communication used for the contextualisation of transactional and relational communicative goals.” Doctoral thesis, Loughborough University.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Derks, David, Arjan E. R. Bos, and Jasper von Grumbkow
    2008 “Emoticons and social interaction on the Internet: The importance of social context.” Computers in Human Behavior24(6): 1817–1825. 10.1016/j.chb.2004.11.013
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2004.11.013 [Google Scholar]
  20. Dresner, Eli, and Susan C. Herring
    2010 “Functions of the nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and illocutionary force.” Communication Theory20(3): 249–268. 10.1111/j.1468‑2885.2010.01362.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2010.01362.x [Google Scholar]
  21. Escouflaire, Louis
    2021 “Signaling irony, displaying politeness, replacing words: The eight linguistic functions of emoji in computer-mediated discourse.” Lingvisticæ Investigationes44(2): 204–235. 10.1075/li.00062.esc
    https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00062.esc [Google Scholar]
  22. Ferrari, Enrique
    2023 “The study of emoji linguistic behaviour: An examination of the theses raised (and not raised) in the academic literature.” Communication & Society36(2): 115–128. 10.15581/003.36.2.115‑128
    https://doi.org/10.15581/003.36.2.115-128 [Google Scholar]
  23. Fountaine, Susan
    2017 “What’s not to like? A qualitative study of young women politicians’ self-framing on Twitter.” Journal of Public Relations Research29(5): 219–237. 10.1080/1062726X.2017.1388239
    https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2017.1388239 [Google Scholar]
  24. Giglietto, Fabio, and Donatella Selva
    2014 “Second screen and participation: A content analysis on a full season dataset of tweets.” Journal of Communication64(2): 260–277. 10.1111/jcom.12085
    https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12085 [Google Scholar]
  25. Glikson, Ella, Arik Cheshin, and Gerben A. van Kleef
    2018 “The dark side of a smiley: Effects of smiling emoticons on virtual first impressions.” Social Psychological and Personality Science9(5): 614–625. 10.1177/1948550617720269
    https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617720269 [Google Scholar]
  26. Guimond, Serge, Nyla R. Branscombe, Sophie Brunot, Abraham P. Buunk, Armand Chatard, Michel Désert, Donna M. Garcia, Shamsul Haque, Delphine Martinot, and Vincent Yzerbyt
    2007 “Culture, gender, and the self: Variations and impact of social comparison processes.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology92(6): 1118–1134. 10.1037/0022‑3514.92.6.1118
    https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1118 [Google Scholar]
  27. Halpern, Daniel, Sebastián Valenzuela, and James E. Katz
    2017 “We face, I tweet: How different social media influence political participation through collective and internal efficacy.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication22(6): 320–336. 10.1111/jcc4.12198
    https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12198 [Google Scholar]
  28. Hand, Christopher J., Kassandra Burd, Alex Oliver, and Christopher M. Robus
    2022 “Interactions between text content and emoji types determine perceptions of both messages and senders.” Computers in Human Behavior Reports81, 100242. 10.1016/j.chbr.2022.100242
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2022.100242 [Google Scholar]
  29. Herring, Susan C., and Ashley Dainas
    2017 “‘Nice picture comment!’: Graphicons in Facebook comment threads.” InProceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences: 2185–2194. Los Alamitos: IEEE Press. 10.24251/HICSS.2017.264
    https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2017.264 [Google Scholar]
  30. Jaeger, Sara R., Yixun Xia, Pui-Yee Lee, Denise C. Hunter, Michelle K. Beresford, and Gastón Ares
    2018 “Emoji questionnaires can be used with a range of population segments: Findings relating to age, gender and frequency of emoji/emoticon use.” Food Quality and Preference681: 397–410. 10.1016/j.foodqual.2017.12.011
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2017.12.011 [Google Scholar]
  31. Kariryaa, Ankit, Simon Rundé, Hendrik Heuer, Andreas Jungherr, and Johannes Schöning
    2022 “The role of flag emoji in online political communication.” Social Science Computer Review40(2): 367–387. 10.1177/0894439320909085
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439320909085 [Google Scholar]
  32. Kaye, Linda K., Stephanie A. Malone, and Helen J. Wall
    2017 “Emoji: Insights, affordances, and possibilities for psychological science.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences21(2): 66–68. 10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.007
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.007 [Google Scholar]
  33. Kaye, Linda K., Sara Rodriguez-Cuadrado, Stephanie A. Malone, Helen J. Wall, Elizabeth Gaunt, Ashleigh L. Mulvey, and Charlotte Graham
    2021 “How emotional are emoji? Exploring the effect of emotional valence on the processing of emoji stimuli.” Computers in Human Behavior1161, 106648. 10.1016/j.chb.2020.106648
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106648 [Google Scholar]
  34. Koch, Timo K., Peter Romero, and Clemens Stachl
    2022 “Age and gender in language, emoji, and emoticon usage in instant messages.” Computers in Human Behavior1261, 106990. 10.1016/j.chb.2021.106990
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106990 [Google Scholar]
  35. Kušen, Ema, and Mark Strembeck
    2018 “Politics, sentiments, and misinformation: An analysis of the Twitter discussion on the 2016 Austrian Presidential Elections.” Online Social Networks and Media51: 37–50. 10.1016/j.osnem.2017.12.002
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.osnem.2017.12.002 [Google Scholar]
  36. Larionova, Marina, and Anastasia Demkina
    2023 “Semiotics of emoticons and emoji in the discoursive space of Spanish political internet communication.” RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics14(4): 1178–1200. 10.22363/2313‑2299‑2023‑14‑4‑1178‑1200
    https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2023-14-4-1178-1200 [Google Scholar]
  37. Li, Jinhang, Giorgos Longinos, Steven Wilson, and Walid Magdy
    2020 “Emoji and self-identity in Twitter/X bios.” Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Natural Language Processing and Computational Social Science: 199–211. 10.18653/v1/2020.nlpcss‑1.22
    https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.nlpcss-1.22 [Google Scholar]
  38. López-Rúa, Paula
    2021 “Men😂 and women❤ on Twitter: A preliminary account of British emoji usage in terms of preferred topics and gender-related habits.” Language@ Internet191: 44–65.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen
    2015 “Jocular mockery in computer-mediated communication: A contrastive study of a Spanish and English Facebook community.” Journal of Politeness Research11(2): 289–327. 10.1515/pr‑2015‑0012
    https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2015-0012 [Google Scholar]
  40. Mann, Chris and Fiona Stewart
    2000A Handbook for Researching. London: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. McCulloch, Gretchen
    2019Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. New York: Riverhead Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Miller, Hannah, Jacob Thebault-Spieker, Shuo Chang, Isaac Johnson, Loren Terveen, and Brent Hecht
    2016 “‘Blissfully happy’ or ‘ready to fight’: Varying interpretations of emoji.” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media10(1): 259–268. 10.1609/icwsm.v10i1.14757
    https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v10i1.14757 [Google Scholar]
  43. Mullany, Louise
    2010 “Gendered identities in the professional workplace: Negotiating the glass ceiling.” InLanguage and Identities, ed. byCarmen Llamas, and Dominic Watt, 179–191. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 10.1515/9780748635788‑020
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748635788-020 [Google Scholar]
  44. Parkwell, Corina
    2019 “Emoji as social semiotic resources for meaning-making in discourse: Mapping the functions of the toilet emoji in Cher’s tweets about Donald Trump.” Discourse, Context & Media301, 100307. 10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100307
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100307 [Google Scholar]
  45. Pérez-Sabater, Carmen
    2019 “Emoticons in relational writing practices on WhatsApp: Some reflections on gender.” InAnalyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions, ed. byPatricia Bou-Franch, and Patricia Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 163–189. Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978‑3‑319‑92663‑6_6
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92663-6_6 [Google Scholar]
  46. Prada, Marília, David L. Rodrigues, Margarida V. Garrido, Diniz Lopes, Bernardo Cavalheiro, and Rui Gaspar
    2018 “Motives, frequency and attitudes toward emoji and emoticon use.” Telematics and Informatics35(7): 1925–1934. 10.1016/j.tele.2018.06.005
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2018.06.005 [Google Scholar]
  47. Rogers, Nick, and Jason J. Jones
    2019 “Using Twitter bios to measure changes in social identity: Are Americans defining themselves more politically over time.” https://shorturl.at/S7HWX (accessed12 December 2024).
  48. Sampietro, Agnese
    2016 “Emoticonos y emoji: análisis de su historia, difusión y uso en la comunicación digital actual [Emoticons and emojis: Analysis of their history, spread, and use in modern digital communication].” Doctoral thesis, Universitat de València.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. 2017 “Emoticonos y cortesía en los mensajes de WhatsApp en España. Español en la red [Emoticons and politeness in WhatsApp messages in Spain: Spanish on the internet].” Lingüística Iberoamericana681: 279–301.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. 2019 “Emoji and rapport management in Spanish WhatsApp chats.” Journal of Pragmatics1431: 109–120. 10.1016/j.pragma.2019.02.009
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.02.009 [Google Scholar]
  51. 2020 “Use and interpretation of emoji in electronic-mediated communication: A survey.” Visual Communication Quarterly27(1): 27–39. 10.1080/15551393.2019.1707086
    https://doi.org/10.1080/15551393.2019.1707086 [Google Scholar]
  52. Sampietro, Agnese, Dafne Calvo, Eva Campos-Domínguez
    2020 “Los emojis del 8M: Su uso en Twitter durante las movilizaciones feministas de 2019 [8M emojis: Their use on Twitter during the 2019 feminist protests].” Dígitos. Revista de Comunicación Digital61: 137–158. 10.7203/rd.v1i6.170
    https://doi.org/10.7203/rd.v1i6.170 [Google Scholar]
  53. Sampietro, Agnese, and Ricardo Morant Marco
    2022 “‘❤ is in the air’: la expansión de la imagen del corazón en el paisaje urbano y digital contemporáneo [‘❤ is in the air’: The expansion of the heart image in the contemporary urban and digital landscape].” Tonos Digital421: n.a.
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Sampietro, Agnese, and Sebastián Sánchez-Castillo
    2020 “Building a political image on Instagram: A study of the personal profile of Santiago Abascal (Vox) in 2018.” Communication & Society33(1): 169–184. 10.15581/003.33.37241
    https://doi.org/10.15581/003.33.37241 [Google Scholar]
  55. Schneebeli, Célia
    2017 “The interplay of emoji, emoticons, and verbal modalities in CMC: A case study of YouTube comments.” VINM 2017: Visualizing (in) the new media. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01632753 (accessed22 January 2024).
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Skovholt, Karianne, Anette Grønning, and Anne Kankaanranta
    2014 “The communicative functions of emoticons in workplace e-mails: :-).” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication191: 780–797. 10.1111/jcc4.12063
    https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12063 [Google Scholar]
  57. Sparks, Paul, and Richard Shepherd
    1992 “Self-identity and the theory of planned behavior: Assessing the role of identification with ‘green consumerism’.” Social Psychology Quarterly55(4): 388–399.
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Spina, Stefania
    2019 “Role of emoticons as structural markers in Twitter/X interactions.” Discourse Processes56(4): 345–362. 10.1080/0163853X.2018.1510654
    https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2018.1510654 [Google Scholar]
  59. Thomas, Melanee, Lisa Lambert, and Amanda Bittner
    2017 “Private mom versus political dad?.” InMothers and Others: The Role of Parenthood in Politics, ed. byMelanee Thomas, and Amanda Bittner, 135–154. Vancouver: UBC Press. 10.59962/9780774834605‑009
    https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774834605-009 [Google Scholar]
  60. Vandergriff, Ilona
    2013 “Emotive communication online: A contextual analysis of computer-mediated communication (CMC) cues.” Journal of Pragmatics511: 1–12. 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.02.008
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.02.008 [Google Scholar]
  61. Virtanen, Tuija, and Carmen Lee
    2022 “Face-work in online discourse: Practices and multiple conceptualizations.” Journal of Pragmatics1951: 1–6. 10.1016/j.pragma.2022.03.013
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2022.03.013 [Google Scholar]
  62. Weissman, Benjamin, and Darren Tanner
    2018 “A strong wink between verbal and emoji-based irony: How the brain processes ironic emoji during language comprehension.” PloS one13(8), e0201727. 10.1371/journal.pone.0201727
    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201727 [Google Scholar]
  63. Yus, Francisco
    2014 “Not all emoticons are created equal.” Linguagem em (Dis) curso141: 511–529. 10.1590/1982‑4017‑140304‑0414
    https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-4017-140304-0414 [Google Scholar]
  64. 2022Smartphone Communication: Interactions in the App Ecosystem. Abingdon: Routledge. 10.4324/9781003200574
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003200574 [Google Scholar]
  65. 2025Emoji Pragmatics. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 10.1007/978‑3‑031‑73723‑7
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73723-7 [Google Scholar]
  66. Zappavigna, Michele, and Lorenzo Logi
    2024Emoji and Social Media Paralanguage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781009179829
    https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009179829 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/ip.00127.mai
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/ip.00127.mai
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): bios; emoji; gender; political affiliation; Spanish politicians; Twitter/X
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error