Twitter Network Analysis Research Articles

When the Opposition Dominates the Conversation (Twitter Network Analysis about the Controversial Indonesian Constitutional Court Decision)

When the Opposition Dominates the Conversation (Twitter Network Analysis about the Controversial Indonesian Constitutional Court Decision)

David vs. Goliath: transnational grassroots outreach and empirical evidence from the #HongKongProtests Twitter network

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the digital transnational advocacy network of the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) movement on Twitter. We present how grassroots users strategically utilize social media for achieving diplomatic engagement with foreign actors. The Twitter network analysis and natural language processing of tweets (N = 88,800) identify the key opinion leaders and their three core grassroots frames: universal values, humanitarian concerns, and geopolitics. We find that the low threshold of Twitter participation provides additional direct channels for ordinary users to engage with foreign politicians and create their own public opinion wave. The Anti-ELAB digital transnational grassroots advocacy network was found to have more high-profile actors, such as corporations and celebrities, due to pressure from grassroots users to stand with them. Though the two traditional frames, universal values and humanitarian concerns, adopted from the organizational-centered outreach remain prevalent, grassroots users extend geopolitical frames to incorporate their cultural capital and economic power.

A Twitter network analysis of European museums

ABSTRACT Increasing numbers of museums use Twitter to attract visitors, engage effectively with them and facilitate the construction and strengthening of communities, where visitors are creating their own authentic, trustworthy content. This paper creates and analyzes the network of Twitter users that talk about top European museums (based on TripAdvisor’s’ ranking) and produces some semantic analysis of the actual content of tweets. Findings show that there is not a real correlation between traffic in Twitter and the corresponding TripAdvisor’s’ ranking. There is an active discussion between users, sometimes involving different museums, while official accounts play an important role in information circulation. Word adjacencies over all connected tweets revealed general topics of discussions. A careful assessment of the discussions could boost public interest, promote the reputation of the museum and help the museum make improvements to deliver better visitor experiences that surpass their expectations.

Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street

Two months before the first Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest in September 2011, activists were using Twitter to organize and spread the movement. In this study, the earliest Twitter messages regarding #OccupyWallStreet were subjected to network analysis to answer these questions: What were the central hubs in the OWS discourse on Twitter in the summer of 2011? How did OWS emerge from among several social movement organizations to lead a nationwide series of demonstrations? What were the key points in the Twitter dialogue that aided the process of scale shift? By addressing these questions, this research connects social movement concepts with network centrality measures to provide a clearer picture of movements in the digital era.

TWITTER LINKS BETWEEN POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS

This article analyses a Twitter network of 150 Dutch journalists and politicians in 2010 and shows that Twitter networks have an underlying structure that is more detailed than one would expect from a simple list of followers and following. In-Degree (followers) measures a users' popularity as a news source and Out-Degree (following) measures openness and newsgathering by users and give insights into the structure of this underlying network. Also, the bridging function—being a hub or link—in this network can be clearly identified, and shows how important a person is as a networker. Ego Network analysis may specify these positions and reveal how a single user has links and bridges to central network positions. From the network connections on Twitter between politicians and journalists it cannot be concluded that there is a closed elite like a fully connected group of users controlling information. Journalists and politicians are mutually dependent on each other and how this dependency is constructed is shown by various network centrality measures, specifying their role (source versus news gatherer) and position in the network (being a networker or not). Consociationalism used to be one of the main characteristics of the Dutch political and media structures. Twitter network analysis on a sub-group level shows that contacts on Twitter between reporters and politicians are no longer influenced by religious or ideological identity of parties and media. Finding news and spreading news is the driving force in the Twitter network between politicians and journalists.