‘Cheap Talk’? Second screening and the irrelevance of TV political debates

Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1108-1123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ceron ◽  
Sergio Splendore
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
General Public ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Electoral Campaign ◽  
Social Tv ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Online Debate

This article analyzes 3 months of online debate during the electoral campaign for the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum. Through supervised sentiment analysis, we assess the extent of support for the referendum within the general public of Twitter users ( Twittersphere) by analyzing the voting intentions expressed online in 2,369,333 tweets. Similarly, we exploit the practice of social TV and investigate the support for the referendum expressed by the 160,465 tweets posted by second screeners, that is, the subsample of Twitter users who watched and actively commented on nine political talk shows during the campaign. We compare the mentions and the attitudes of the Twittersphere and the second screeners by means of a lead–lag analysis to test whether the second screeners can act as influencers and trendsetters able to shape or anticipate attention and opinions toward an issue within larger audiences. The results reveal an inverse relationship between the Twittersphere and the second screeners whereby the reactions of the latter diverge from those of the general Twitter public. This finding has implications for the literature on echo chambers and the polarization of social media.

Tweeting television: Exploring communication activities on Twitter while watching TV

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Buschow ◽  
Beate Schneider ◽  
Simon Ueberheide
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Social Tv ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Watching Tv

Abstract“Social TV”, described as the use of social media such as Twitter or Facebook stimulated by TV programs, is highly topical in the television industry. Communication research has fallen behind in addressing this issue. In this paper we explore the simultaneous communication activities of Twitter users while watching TV. Additionally, we tested whether different TV programs stimulate different communication activities. The main findings of our quantitative content analysis of approximately 30,000 messages show that communication within the Twitter community as well as evaluations of shows and actors are the main subjects of the explored tweets. We also found that different TV programs evoke different communication activities. While talent shows produce expressions of fandom and critiques of the candidates in the show, live events evoke a critical debate about the show itself and what’s happening on screen. Political talk shows can stimulate a public discourse.

scholarly journals e-Campaigning in the 2014 European elections

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ceron ◽  
Luigi Curini
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Electoral Campaign ◽  
The Relationship

The article explores the relationship between the incentives of parties to campaign on valence issues and the ideological proximity between one party and its competitors. Building from the existing literature, we provide a novel theoretical model that investigates this relationship in a two-dimensional multiparty system. Our theoretical argument is then tested focusing on the 2014 European electoral campaign in the five largest European countries, through an analysis of the messages posted by parties in their official Twitter accounts. Our results highlight an inverse relationship between a party’s distance from its neighbors and its likelihood to emphasize valence issues. However, as suggested in our theoretical framework, this effect is statistically significant only with respect to valence positive campaigning. Our findings have implications for the literature on valence competition, electoral campaigns, and social media.

scholarly journals Analyzing Twitter as a Platform for Alzheimer-Related Dementia Awareness: Thematic Analyses of Tweets (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Yi-Mei Cheng ◽  
Lisa Liu ◽  
Benjamin KP Woo
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
General Public ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Health Advocacy ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Mental Health Advocacy

BACKGROUND Dementia is a prevalent disorder among adults and often subjects an individual and his or her family. Social media websites may serve as a platform to raise awareness for dementia and allow researchers to explore health-related data. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to utilize Twitter, a social media website, to examine the content and location of tweets containing the keyword “dementia” to better understand the reasons why individuals discuss dementia. We adopted an approach that analyzed user location, user category, and tweet content subcategories to classify large publicly available datasets. METHODS A total of 398 tweets were collected using the Twitter search application programming interface with the keyword “dementia,” circulated between January and February 2018. Twitter users were categorized into 4 categories: general public, health care field, advocacy organization, and public broadcasting. Tweets posted by “general public” users were further subcategorized into 5 categories: mental health advocate, affected persons, stigmatization, marketing, and other. Placement into the categories was done through thematic analysis. RESULTS A total of 398 tweets were written by 359 different screen names from 28 different countries. The largest number of Twitter users were from the United States and the United Kingdom. Within the United States, the largest number of users were from California and Texas. The majority (281/398, 70.6%) of Twitter users were categorized into the “general public” category. Content analysis of tweets from the “general public” category revealed stigmatization (113/281, 40.2%) and mental health advocacy (102/281, 36.3%) as the most common themes. Among tweets from California and Texas, California had more stigmatization tweets, while Texas had more mental health advocacy tweets. CONCLUSIONS Themes from the content of tweets highlight the mixture of the political climate and the supportive network present on Twitter. The ability to use Twitter to combat stigma and raise awareness of mental health indicates the benefits that can potentially be facilitated via the platform, but negative stigmatizing tweets may interfere with the effectiveness of this social support.

scholarly journals Populists Prefer Social Media Over Talk Shows: An Analysis of Populist Messages and Stylistic Elements Across Six Countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511882335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Ernst ◽  
Sina Blassnig ◽  
Sven Engesser ◽  
Florin Büchel ◽  
Frank Esser
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Stylistic Elements ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Media Channels

For studying populism in a hybrid and high-choice media environment, the comparison of various media channels is especially instructive. We argue that populism-related communication is a combination of key messages (content) and certain stylistic devices (form), and we compare their utilization by a broad range of political actors on Facebook, Twitter, and televised talk shows across six countries (CH, DE, FR, IT, UK, and US). We conducted a content analysis of social media and talk show statements ( N = 2067) from 31 parties during a nonelection period of 3 months in 2015. We place special emphasis on stylistic devices and find that they can be grouped into three dimensions—equivalent to three dimensions used for populist key messages. We further find that political parties are generally more inclined to use populism-related communication on Facebook and Twitter than in political talk shows and that both new challenger parties and extreme parties use higher amounts of populist key messages and style elements.

scholarly journals From contents to comments: Social TV and perceived pluralism in political talk shows

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 659-675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ceron ◽  
Sergio Splendore
Keyword(s):  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Public Television ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Tv ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Ideological Background

Going beyond source and content pluralism, we propose a two-dimensional audience-based measure of perceived pluralism by exploiting the practice of “social TV”. For this purpose, 135,228 tweets related to 30 episodes of prime time political talk shows broadcast in Italy in 2014 have been analyzed through supervised sentiment analysis. The findings suggest that the two main TV networks compete by addressing generalist audiences. The public television offers a plural set of talk shows but ignores the anti-political audience. The ideological background of the anchorman shapes the audience’s perception, while the gender of the guests does not seem to matter.

scholarly journals Extending influence on social media: The behaviour of political talk-show opinion leaders on Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Marcos-García ◽  
Laura Alonso-Muñoz ◽  
Amparo López-Meri
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
Political News ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Personal Brand ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Strategic Space

Social media, especially Twitter, has become a strategic space for those users who try to extend their influence in the digital environment. This work focuses on opinion leaders who participate in political talk-shows. The aim is to analyse the use and the thematic agenda proposed by these actors on Twitter during electoral periods. The Twitter profiles of 20 opinion leaders (journalists, media editors and experts) of four Spanish television channels are examined. A quantitative content analysis is used on 2,588 tweets disseminated during the November 2019 general election campaign in Spain by them. Results show differences between the different types of actors who make up the sample. Journalists use Twitter to express their criticisms and reinforce their community of followers, especially using interaction and humour. Media editors are more neutral and promote their personal brand through the promotion of their media companies. Experts inform and analyse political news more than journalists, although they also criticise and respond to citizens’ comments. Regarding the subject agenda, messages on electoral results and media content predominate. Thus, the data shows how opinion leaders take advantage of Twitter to freely show their opinions, especially negative ones, and boost dialogue with users.

scholarly journals Researching with Twitter timeline data: A demonstration via “everyday” socio-political talk around welfare provision

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395171876662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Brooker ◽  
Julie Barnett ◽  
John Vines ◽  
Shaun Lawson ◽  
Tom Feltwell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Keyword Search ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Twitter Users

Increasingly, social media platforms are understood by researchers to be valuable sites of politically-relevant discussions. However, analyses of social media data are typically undertaken by focusing on ‘snapshots’ of issues using query-keyword search strategies. This paper develops an alternative, less issue-based, mode of analysing Twitter data. It provides a framework for working qualitatively with longitudinally-oriented Twitter data (user-timelines), and uses an empirical case to consider the value and the challenges of doing so. Exploring how Twitter users place “everyday” talk around the socio-political issue of UK welfare provision, we draw on digital ethnography and narrative analysis techniques to analyse 25 user-timelines and identify three distinctions in users’ practices: users’ engagements with welfare as TV entertainment or as a socio-political concern; the degree of sustained engagement with said issues, and; the degree to which users’ tweeting practices around welfare were congruent with or in contrast to their other tweets. With this analytic orientation, we demonstrate how a longitudinal analysis of user-timelines provides rich resources that facilitate a more nuanced understanding of user engagement in everyday socio-political discussions online.

Methodological Problems of Using Arabic-Language Twitter as a Gauge for Arab Attitudes Toward Politics and Society

2020 ◽  
pp. 234779892097628
Author(s):  
Mujtaba Ali Isani
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
General Public ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Measurement Bias ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Twitter Users

Public opinion research in the Middle Eastern context has seen a proliferation of data research that aims to track changes in the state of Arab attitudes. Yet, it remains unclear what is being measured and how representative the data is. This article aims to address this question by reviewing the extent to which and how the existing literature has addressed the issues of representativeness of Twitter communities and the validity of opinion measures derived from sentiment analysis in the Middle Eastern context. While some studies aim no further than to gauge the dynamics of Twitter debates, many others seek to generalize the larger public opinion trends. This raises questions about how representative Twitter users are of the general public, how asymmetric social media use is, and how participation routines vary. Furthermore, to what extent can sentiment analysis translate individual tweets into meaningful measures of expressed opinion, and how sensitive are means of aggregating opinions from sentiment analysis to variation in terms of tone and amount of text within and across individuals? Following a comprehensive review of existing research in the context of the Middle East, this article also aims to derive a clearer understanding of how collective Twitter opinion relates to public opinion and make some suggestions of ways to design sampling and coding procedures, as well as validation exercises to address measurement bias and error.

scholarly journals Political relevance in the eye of the beholder: Determining the substantiveness of TV shows and political debates with Twitter data

First Monday ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Boukes ◽  
Damian Trilling
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
The Political ◽  
Television Programs ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Genre Classification ◽  
Audience Responses ◽  
Tv Shows

Addressing the call to move beyond a simple genre classification of TV shows as either substantive (hard) news or non-substantive (soft) infotainment, we propose using social media reactions to determine a program’s political relevance. Such an approach provides information that goes beyond genre or content characteristics and reflects what really reaches an audience. Analyzing tweets about two Dutch talk shows and four U.S. primary debates, we show that audience responses to television programs differ considerably regarding their political relevance. Thereby, we demonstrate how examining online audience reactions can be employed as a sophisticated and valid way to assess the political relevance of TV programs.

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