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pilot study in social network analysis on twitter relations between reporters and politicians in Dutch parliament
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TWITTERSOCIAL NETWORKS BETWEEN
POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS
Peter VerweijSchool 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
Zooming in (2): news source
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 (3): news source
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