Campanhas online e twitter: a interação entre campanhas e eleitores nas eleições presidenciais brasileiras de 2010 1/Online Campaigning and Twitter: communicative interaction between campaigns and voters in 2010 Brazilian presidential election

Since 1996, researchers from around the world discusses, theoretically and empirically, about which democratic and strategic benefits derives from online direct communication between candidates, political parties and voters as well as how often and with what purpose direct communication is adopted. Specifically, this paper aims at evaluating the frequency of interactive features adoption by the three main candidates running for president of Brazil in 2010 on Twitter using a methodological approach to distinguish real interactions between campaigns and voters from messages that contains interactive features but are not translated in real discursive exchanges. This paper concludes that the three main candidates interacted in significant levels. Notwithstanding, the direct interactions between the three main campaigns and Twitter users were not used to discuss ideas, plans and positions on political issues.