Abstract
While previous research efforts have revealed the significant civic and political potential of interpersonal interactions in social media, the dynamics of political discourse in online social networks remains to be explicated. With an interest on understanding the potential to function as an egalitarian public sphere for political discourse, this study investigates the flow of political information and the concentration of discussion in the social media context. More specifically, this study examines Twitter data and reveals that patterns of information flow can be linked to the different levels of influence exerted by its users on Twitter. In addition, the results of this study suggest that political conversations in Twitter tend to be concentrated, rather than creating an equal playing field. Future implications of social media as a democratic public sphere for are discussed.
Highlights
Social networking sites have become one of the most popular destinations online, and are ranked among the top ten most visited sites in the world [1]
With a large dataset of Twitter, the current study examines the structure of information sharing to understand how users with different levels of influence shape the flow of information in online social networks
The central motivation for this study was to understand the meaning of social media as an online public sphere for political discourse
Summary
Social networking sites have become one of the most popular destinations online, and are ranked among the top ten most visited sites in the world [1]. Recent cases illustrate that during times of political upheaval, social networking sites functioned as an effective tool for citizen communication, to the extent that their use increased the odds of citizens’ participation in protests [2]. While these and other research efforts have highlighted the significant potential of social media as a new venue for political communication, the nature of political discourse in online social networks still remains to be explored. The fundamental question motivating this research is whether the newly emerged social media platforms can create an egalitarian public sphere that is fundamentally open and embodies a decentralized structure of participation [3]. By exploring the participants in conversations over an extended period of time on Twitter, this study sheds light on the concentration of political discourse among users in social media
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