scholarly journals Immigration as a Divisive Topic: Clusters and Content Diffusion in the Italian Twitter Debate

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Salvatore Vilella ◽  
Mirko Lai ◽  
Daniela Paolotti ◽  
Giancarlo Ruffo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Community Structure ◽  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Network Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Silent Majority ◽  
Social Landscape ◽  
Political Spectrum

In this work, we apply network science to analyse almost 6 M tweets about the debate around immigration in Italy, collected between 2018 and 2019, when many related events captured media outlets’ attention. Our aim was to better understand the dynamics underlying the interactions on social media on such a delicate and divisive topic, which are the actors that are leading the discussion, and whose messages have the highest chance to reach out the majority of the accounts that are following the debate. The debate on Twitter is represented with networks; we provide a characterisation of the main clusters by looking at the highest in-degree nodes in each one and by analysing the text of the tweets of all the users. We find a strongly segregated network which shows an explicit interplay with the Italian political and social landscape, that however seems to be disconnected from the actual geographical distribution and relocation of migrants. In addition, quite surprisingly, the influencers and political leaders that apparently lead the debate, do not necessarily belong to the clusters that include the majority of nodes: we find evidence of the existence of a ‘silent majority’ that is more connected to accounts who expose a more positive stance toward migrants, while leaders whose stance is negative attract apparently more attention. Finally, we see that the community structure clearly affects the diffusion of content (URLs) by identifying the presence of both local and global trends of diffusion, and that communities tend to display segregation regardless of their political and cultural background. In particular, we observe that messages that spread widely in the two largest clusters, whose most popular members are also notoriously at the opposite sides of the political spectrum, have a very low chance to get visibility into other clusters.

scholarly journals THE SPRING OF THE NETWORKED NATIONS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ARAB SPRING

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harel Chorev
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The Arab Spring

This essay argues that social media played an important role in the Arab Spring and contributed to a change in the political culture of some of those countries that have gone through regime-change through 2011-2012. The article further posits that the contribution of social media was mainly instrumental, not causal, and that the main reasons behind the Arab Spring were problems generated by regional, local and global trends, affecting each country differently.  

scholarly journals Role of Social Media in Election Campaigning in India with Special Reference to Assam

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. p1
Author(s):  
Rantu Sarmah ◽  
Dr. Niranjan Mohapatra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
The Social ◽  
General Meaning

This is an attempt to find out the role of social media in election campaigning in India with special reference to Assam. Democratic countries like United States of America, India the social media has become an integral part for political communications during election campaigning. This new way of campaigning during election plays an important role to attract voters. Social media has given a new platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Whatsapp, Youtube etc. to the political parties and the voters, these are becoming an easy tool for the political leaders to interact with their voters. Social media allows candidates to share, post, comments, and their views during election and making them more direct involvement to their voters. These new tools or platforms are appeared as new area for research. Firstly to find out the term of social media, secondly, general meaning of political campaigning, thirdly, uses of social media in Indian election campaigning with reference to Assam and lastly conclusions.

scholarly journals “You’re important, Jeremy, but not that important”: Personalised responses and equivocation in political interviews

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 560-581
Author(s):  
Maurice Waddle ◽  
Peter Bull
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Rate Analysis ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Spectrum

This study was an assessment of personalised equivocation in political interviews, namely, politicians’ responses to questions which, in lieu of an explicit reply, are directed personally at the interviewer. Twenty-six interviews with recent UK party leaders were analysed in terms of questions, replies, and personalisation. The majority of personalised responses contained elements of criticism, although over a quarter were more amicable. For the eight featured politicians, the use of such responses was adjudged to be more about individual communicative style than their position on the political spectrum. Only one politician did not respond in this manner, indicating a more widespread use of personalisation than was previously suggested. Furthermore, an evaluation of interviewer follow-ups showed its effectiveness as a diversionary tactic in the face of troublesome questions. In terms of the proportion of questions which receive a full reply, a general reply rate analysis highlighted how recent political leaders have changed little from their predecessors.

Electoral Propaganda Through Televised Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 287-305
Author(s):  
Elena Bellido-Pérez ◽  
Mayte Donstrup
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Game Of Thrones

The third golden age of television, in consonance with the increase of the phenomenon transmedia, has coincided with disseminating the message on social media. Spectators themselves are linking the fictional discourse on television with events that are happening in the news, especially through humor. This tendency has also been embraced by political leaders, who use memes and other productions to draw parallels and connect them with their ideas. In the Spanish context, the campaign around the last general elections of April 28, 2019 has taken place together with the beginning of the broadcasting of the Game of Thrones' last season. This has provoked the adoption of its fictional discourse by the main political leaders, who have also used other fictional references for their campaign. Hence, the aim of this chapter is studying the connection between the political ideas and the fictional product in the online party communication.

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rogers ◽  
Sal Hagen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The Political ◽  
Junk Food ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Spectrum

The publication of the study elicited reactions, especially on Twitter, where questions arose about the use of the notion of junk news, rather than ‘pulp news’, among other points. The analogy to junk food is emphasised. There was also the question of symmetry, and the treatment of both ends of the political spectrum. Why is the new populist right identified as the purveyors of extreme content? We found a polarised Dutch media landscape where hyperpartisan (and to a lesser extent conspiracy) content from new populist right (rather than the left or other orientations) circulates well on social media. Unlike in the US during the initial Trump insurgency, mainstream news in the Netherlands still outperforms what was hitherto known as ‘fake news’, across all platforms.

Reactions to China-linked Fake News: Experimental Evidence from Taiwan

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Fin Bauer ◽  
Kimberly L. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Real Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
False News

Abstract China is accused of conducting disinformation campaigns on Taiwan's social media. Existing studies on foreign interventions in democratic societies predict that such disinformation campaigns should lead to increasing partisan polarization within Taiwan. We argue that a backlash effect, making Taiwan's citizens more united against China, is equally plausible. We conduct a survey experiment exposing participants to a real-life rumour and rebuttal to test these competing hypotheses. We find, at best, mixed evidence for polarization. Although neither rumour nor rebuttal mention China, there is consistent evidence of backlash against China. Most notably, participants across the political spectrum are more inclined to support Taiwanese independence after viewing the rumour rebuttal. These findings indicate that citizens may put aside partisanship when confronted with false news that is plausibly linked to an external actor. We conclude by discussing the broader applicability of our theory and implications for cross-Strait relations.

scholarly journals Please Let Science Talk: Presidential Sentiment and the Public’s Risk Perception in the Era of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Guo ◽  
Junhong Yang ◽  
Yeqin Zeng ◽  
Shulei Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negatively Associated ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Science Talk ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Impact

Abstract We examine whether and to what extent the presidential COVID-19 sentiment (PCS), constructed based on the former President Trump’s tweets, has influenced the public’s risk perception regarding COVID-19. We find that during the COVID-19 pandemic, PCS is negatively associated with social distancing behaviour in the Republican counties but is positively associated with social distancing behaviour in the Democratic counties. Our finding supports the view that individuals’ risk perception is influenced by the information they receive from politicians through social media, with the impact exhibiting as variations with respect to the individuals’ position on the political spectrum.

Social Media as Disruptive Technologies in an Era of Fake News

2020 ◽  
pp. 250-274
Author(s):  
Osée Kamga
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Silent Majority ◽  
Disruptive Technologies ◽  
The People ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Arab Spring

Since the Arab Spring (2010-2012), there has been a growing interest in the transformative power of social media, with a number of studies looking at its power to mobilize hitherto silent majority of the people, its ability to spread information at a lightning speed or to shape government-citizen relationship. This chapter is part of that trend, and it focuses specifically on Sub-Saharan Africa. It borrows Christensen's concept of “disruptive technologies” and uses it as a framework to analyze the processes of social media appropriation in the political field in that part of the continent. The chapter articulates ways in which social media are transforming the political landscape in the region and wonders about the outcome of these processes in the backdrop of the emerging and spreading of fake news.

scholarly journals Reaching out to the voter? Campaigning on Twitter during the 2019 European elections

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205316802091725 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. Daniel ◽  
Lukas Obholzer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Standard Tool ◽  
Lead Candidate ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Twitter Activity

This article draws upon the literature on comparative political institutions in order to re-examine the logic of Twitter usage during campaign periods, now that social media has become a standard tool that is used across the political spectrum. We test how electoral institutions and individual characteristics shaped Twitter activity during the 2019 European elections cycle and compare the nature of this usage with the previous 2014 campaign. Our findings allow for an evaluation of social media campaigning against the backdrop of its dynamic evolution, while also confirming its normalisation in the European elections’ revival of the Spitzenkandidat process. Rather than seeking to differentiate themselves from party-internal and external competitors or highlighting their own qualities, our findings suggest that Members of the European Parliament used Twitter in 2019 to emphasise the lead candidate that they have in common.

scholarly journals How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media? Evidence From Linked Survey and Twitter Data

SAGE Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401983270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Eady ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Andy Guess ◽  
Jan Zilinsky ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Political Spectrum

A major point of debate in the study of the Internet and politics is the extent to which social media platforms encourage citizens to inhabit online “bubbles” or “echo chambers,” exposed primarily to ideologically congenial political information. To investigate this question, we link a representative survey of Americans with data from respondents’ public Twitter accounts ( N = 1,496). We then quantify the ideological distributions of users’ online political and media environments by merging validated estimates of user ideology with the full set of accounts followed by our survey respondents ( N = 642,345) and the available tweets posted by those accounts ( N ~ 1.2 billion). We study the extent to which liberals and conservatives encounter counter-attitudinal messages in two distinct ways: (a) by the accounts they follow and (b) by the tweets they receive from those accounts, either directly or indirectly (via retweets). More than a third of respondents do not follow any media sources, but among those who do, we find a substantial amount of overlap (51%) in the ideological distributions of accounts followed by users on opposite ends of the political spectrum. At the same time, however, we find asymmetries in individuals’ willingness to venture into cross-cutting spaces, with conservatives more likely to follow media and political accounts classified as left-leaning than the reverse. Finally, we argue that such choices are likely tempered by online news watching behavior.

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