Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter
Social media platforms such as Twitter/X are increasingly important for political communication but the empirical question as to whether such communication enhances democratic consensus building (the ideal of deliberative democracy) or instead contributes to societal polarisation via fostering of ha...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Social Sciences |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/1/5 |
| _version_ | 1797342599066943488 |
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| author | Robert Ackland Felix Gumbert Ole Pütz Bryan Gertzel Matthias Orlikowski |
| author_facet | Robert Ackland Felix Gumbert Ole Pütz Bryan Gertzel Matthias Orlikowski |
| author_sort | Robert Ackland |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Social media platforms such as Twitter/X are increasingly important for political communication but the empirical question as to whether such communication enhances democratic consensus building (the ideal of deliberative democracy) or instead contributes to societal polarisation via fostering of hate speech and “information disorders” such as echo chambers is worth exploring. Political deliberation involves reciprocal communication between users, but much of the recent research into politics on social media has focused on one-to-many communication, in particular the sharing and diffusion of information on Twitter via retweets. This paper presents a new approach to studying reciprocal political communication on Twitter, with a focus on extending network-analytic indicators of deliberation. We use the Twitter v2 API to collect a new dataset (#debatenight2020) of reciprocal communication on Twitter during the first debate of the 2020 US presidential election and show that a hashtag-based collection alone would have collected only 1% of the debate-related communication. Previous work into using social network analysis to measure deliberation has involved using discussion tree networks to quantify the extent of argumentation (maximum depth) and representation (maximum width); we extend these measures by explicitly incorporating reciprocal communication (via triad census) and the political partisanship of users (inferred via usage of partisan hashtags). Using these methods, we find evidence for reciprocal communication among partisan actors, but also point to a need for further research to understand what forms this communication takes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T10:35:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-98f8289a33b647d78bc330c19e5591be |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-0760 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T10:35:36Z |
| publishDate | 2023-12-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Social Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-98f8289a33b647d78bc330c19e5591be2024-01-26T18:27:37ZengMDPI AGSocial Sciences2076-07602023-12-01131510.3390/socsci13010005Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on TwitterRobert Ackland0Felix Gumbert1Ole Pütz2Bryan Gertzel3Matthias Orlikowski4School of Sociology, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, AustraliaFaculty of Technology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, GermanyFaculty of Technology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, GermanySchool of Sociology, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, AustraliaFaculty of Technology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, GermanySocial media platforms such as Twitter/X are increasingly important for political communication but the empirical question as to whether such communication enhances democratic consensus building (the ideal of deliberative democracy) or instead contributes to societal polarisation via fostering of hate speech and “information disorders” such as echo chambers is worth exploring. Political deliberation involves reciprocal communication between users, but much of the recent research into politics on social media has focused on one-to-many communication, in particular the sharing and diffusion of information on Twitter via retweets. This paper presents a new approach to studying reciprocal political communication on Twitter, with a focus on extending network-analytic indicators of deliberation. We use the Twitter v2 API to collect a new dataset (#debatenight2020) of reciprocal communication on Twitter during the first debate of the 2020 US presidential election and show that a hashtag-based collection alone would have collected only 1% of the debate-related communication. Previous work into using social network analysis to measure deliberation has involved using discussion tree networks to quantify the extent of argumentation (maximum depth) and representation (maximum width); we extend these measures by explicitly incorporating reciprocal communication (via triad census) and the political partisanship of users (inferred via usage of partisan hashtags). Using these methods, we find evidence for reciprocal communication among partisan actors, but also point to a need for further research to understand what forms this communication takes.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/1/5political communicationpolitical deliberationsocial network analysispolitical partisanshippolarisationTwitter |
| spellingShingle | Robert Ackland Felix Gumbert Ole Pütz Bryan Gertzel Matthias Orlikowski Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter Social Sciences political communication political deliberation social network analysis political partisanship polarisation |
| title | Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter |
| title_full | Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter |
| title_fullStr | Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter |
| title_short | Reciprocal Communication and Political Deliberation on Twitter |
| title_sort | reciprocal communication and political deliberation on twitter |
| topic | political communication political deliberation social network analysis political partisanship polarisation |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/1/5 |
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