Abstract

Emojis are small sized images which are naturally combined with free text to visually complement or condense the meaning of a message. The set of available emojis is fixed, irrespective of a user’s location. However, their interpretation and the way they are used may vary. In this paper, we compare the meaning and usage of emojis across two Spanish cities: Barcelona and Madrid.

Our results suggest that the overall semantics of the subset of emojis we studied is preserved over these cities. However, some of them are interpreted differently, which suggests there may exist cultural differences between inhabitants of Barcelona and Madrid, and that these are reflected in how they communicate in social networks.