Social and semantic network analysis of Facebook pages: the case of Brexit and Bremain leaders

Abstract

This paper aims to probe how leaders of Brexit (Nigel Farage) and Bremain (David Cameron) camps communicated with the UK public via Facebook fan pages. This study employed two different types of data analysis (social network analysis and semantic network analysis) for exploring the structure and the contents of information diffusion process. These analyses yielded the opposite results. For social network analysis, Bremain Camp showed a preponderance regarding the numbers of commentators, their relationships and network distance. Conversely, for the semantic network analysis, the results suggested that Brexit-related framings were salient in both leaders’ Facebook fan pages. In other words, even though these two leaders have different perspectives and opinions to the Brexit, both Facebook fan pages eventually promoted Brexit campaigns to their followers. In addition, this study was able to find out Brexiters strategically approached and effectively persuaded a substantial pool of Bremainers.