The Dynamics of Event-Based Political Influencers on Twitter: A Longitudinal Analysis of Influential Accounts During Chinese Political Events

Abstract

The study examines the dynamics and multiplicity of political influencers on Twitter by focusing on the discussion of six China-related political events between 2017 and 2020. We consider influence as communication practices aimed to shape the flow of online information, and political influencers as a small number of users who can disproportionately advance certain topics and direct audience attention. Our analysis of English and Chinese data ( N = 2,349,852) shows that political influencers engage in political events through two roles: initiators and amplifiers. While existing institutions such as news outlets are initiators who originate political information, individuals, trolls, and bots flood social media to share information provided by other users. Moreover, the results suggest that political influencers are largely event-dependent in the way that few accounts remain influential across different events, times, and language contexts. These findings advance our understanding of political influencers from a dynamic perspective.