Twitter networks between reporters and politicians

TWITTER SOCIAL NETWORKS BETWEEN POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS Peter Verweij School of Journalism Hogeschool Utrecht The Netherlands

Journalists and Politicians
Journalist and Politicians live in Symbiosis: they are mutually dependent in process of exchange of information, news, political points of view
Twitter plays an important role in the political public debate, politicians, public and journalists
How does Twitter shapes this process of communication? What are the characteristics of the social network of Twitter relationships between politicians and journalists?

Findings about Twitter networks
Most relationships declared within Twitter are meaningless from the point of interaction
Reciprocity is low; most tweets are just broad casted
The distance between twitters users in the network is short
Twitter is about news and information, not about social networking

Hidden network in Twitter?
Who are using Twitter? And who are the major players in parties and media?
Do these players have a special position in the social network of twitter relations and what is the function of this position?
Is there an elite of journalists and politicians on Twitter which controls the process of communication?

Research Design
Selected from Twitter 150 politicians(100) and journalists/ reporters and advisers/spin doctors(50); Oct 2010;
Creating a matrix of 150X150 politicians and journalists following each other;
Using NodeXL, template for Excel, to analyze the relationships in the matrix.

This is how the total Twitter network looks like

Distributions of Tweets
Journalists are sending more tweets than politicians
Women are sending more tweets than men
Greens and Liberals are sending more tweets than socialists and right wing populist
Journalists at audio-visual media slightly more than print
150 persons have 5000 connections; diameter 4; average distance 1.6 and density 0.22 (low)

Zooming in (1): news source
Incoming relations=In Degree=Popularity; important as a news source
In Degree political parties reflect the power distribution in the coalition
Christen dem and orthodox christ dem score high
All Soc score low
In Degree media: press scores higher than audio visual media

In Degree for persons
Leading source is a journalists working for commercial station: Wester
Followed by political leaders of Greens and Christ Dem: Halsema and Verhagen
Remarkable: high score for Wilders and one member of socialist party: Samsom

Zooming in: news gathering
Out going relations=Out Degree=outbound orientation; news gatherer
News gatherers: reporters belonging to public broadcaster score high; print journalist score lower
Wilders does not have an Out Degree
Chris dem and liberals are active in news gathering

Zooming in (1): Authority and Hubs
Google rank= central network positions; persons with authority and hub
Samsom socialist is the highest; followed by Greens(Halsema) and Public Broadcaster (Rietbergen)

Zooming in (2): Authority and Hubs

Clustering: Subgroups in the network
Clustering analysis showed 5 interesting group
Density increased to 0.30
The biggest group(51 members) consisting of socialist and greens, had also the highest number of reporters, majority from public broadcasting
One smaller cluster(18) is combination from right and left and connected to the leading source:
SP and PVV with Wester

Zooming out(1): Conclusions
The Twitter network does not show an elite of journalists and politicians controlling the communication. Density is low, and persons have different positions. However the distances are short, making interaction easy and fast
Consociatianalism/pillarization play no role in Twitter relations
Except for close connection between orthodox chris dem and their broadcaster
Biggest subgroup consists of socialist party and reporters from public broadcaster: church for the left wing

Zooming out(2): Conclusions
Twitter relations reflect the balance of power: attention goes to parties and persons in central positions at that moment
Twitter analyses is a snap shot; relations are dynamic and change
Twitter is used for news and information exchange
Twitter is also used for broadcasting and campaigning: Wilders/PVV

Thank you very much!
[email_address]
www.d3-media.nl

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Twitter networks between reporters and politicians

by peterverweij

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