Is social media challenging traditional politics ?

Is Social Media Challenging

Traditional Politics? Social Media Lab Speaker Series, November 26, 2015

Marc Esteve Del [email protected]

@NetMev

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Outline 1. Social Media and Traditional Politics 2. Research Questions and Hypotheses 3. Case Study: The Catalan Parliament 4. Approach and Methods 5. Results

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Social Media and Politics

Opportunities: To listen the electorate To engage with the electorate

Challenges: Parties’ hierarchical organization Politicians’ behavior towards social media Desireit.wordpress.com

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Social Media and Political Research Streams of Research:

Electoral studies: parties and candidates use of Twitter and Facebook during the political campaigns (Tumasjan et al, 2010; Aragon et al, 2012)

Personalization of Politics: Twitter used by political leaders to reinforce their intraparty position and contact directly with the electorate (Klinger, 2014; Esteve Del Valle, 2015)

My Research: Twitter and Polarization: exposure to cross-ideological opinions (Arendt, 1968; Calhoun,

1988; Habermas, 1989) is an inherent factor of the democratic health of representative institutions

Twitter and Opinion Leaders: Party Leadership should be threatened by the emergence of new leaders (Duverger, 1954)

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Twitter and Politics: Polarization?

Conover et al, 2011

Retweet Network Mention Network

• Red: Left Wing

• Blue: Right Wing

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Twitter and Politics: Opinion Leaders

Katz, 1957

Leadership in Twitter NetworksLeadership in Mass Media

• Black Node= Politician

• Grey Nodes= other politicians

• Lines= relations (followers, retweets or mentions)

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Is Social Media Challenging Traditional Politics?

o.canada.com Forbes.com

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Twitter Networks Following- Follower Network: network of parliamentarians following other parliamentarians

Retweet Network: network of parliamentarians retweeting other parliamentarians

Mention Network: network parliamentarians mentioning other parliamentarians

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Research Questions

Research Question 1: Is Twitter facilitating parliamentarians' exposure to cross-ideological opinion or is it confining them to like-minded clusters?

Research Question 2: Who are the opinion leaders of the following-follower, retweet and mention networks of parliamentarians and what are their characteristics?

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Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: Communication flows of Catalan parliamentarians' following-follower and retweet Twitter networks are party and ideological polarized while those of the mention network revel some cross-ideological and cross-party connections

Hypothesis 2: Communication flows of the Catalan parliamentarians' following-follower, retweet and mention Twitter networks are empowering highly visible political leaders

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The Catalan Parliament: 2013-2014

Early adoption of social media by Catalan parliament: “Parliament 2.0” (2009)

Parliamentarians’ use of Twitter: In 2014 85% of Catalan parliamentarians used Twitter

Number of Political Parties: 7

Ideological Axis : 2

Parlament.cat

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The Catalan Parliament: Parties and Ideological Axis

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Approach and Methods Network Approach: understand how the relations between Catalan MPs explain polarization

and leadership in the Catalan parliamentarian Twitter network.

Statistical Analysis: to find the parliamentarians exposure to cross-ideological opinions and build statistical models to discover the factors behind Catalan parliamentarians leadership in the following-follower, retweet and mention networks.

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Creation of a Data Base Catalan Parliamentarians socio-demographic and political characteristics:

Socio-demographic characteristics: Age, gender and education level.

Electoral characteristics: Incumbency and Political party.

Parliament activity: Number of interventions in the Plenary, Number of interventions in commissions and Number of commissions in which the MPs participate.

Political position: Political position in the Parliament and in the parliamentarian group, Political position in Parliament commissions, Political Position in the political party, Position on the Left-Right axis and Position on the Catalan Nationalist- Non Nationalist axis

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Creation of a Data Base Catalan Parliamentarians behavior on Twitter:

Period of Time: 1 January 2013 and 31 March 2014

Data: All relations (4,516), retweets (6,045) and mentions (19,507) of Catalan MPs

Internet behavior: blog, Facebook.

Twitter activity: Number of followers (MPs), Number of parliamentarians followed, Tweets x day, Favorites per day, Retweets (received and sent), Mentions (received and sent).

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Political Polarization: Catalan MPs’ Following-Follower Network

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Political Polarization: Catalan MPs’ Following-Follower Network

*The nodes of the network are the 115 deputies with Twitter account

**The size of the nodes is equivalent to the number of followers of the MPs

***The color of the nodes indicates the political party they belong to: orange (CIU), yellow (ERC), red (PSC), blue (PP), green (ICV), brown (C’S) and violet (CUP)

The following-follower network of the Catalan parliamentarians’ Twitter Network (January 1st 2013- March 31 2014)

Catalan Nationalist- Non Nationalist Axis

Left-Right Axis

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Political Polarization: Catalan MPs’ Retweet Network

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Political Polarization: Catalan MPs Mention Network

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Political Polarization: Catalan MPs Mention Network

*The nodes of the network are the 115 deputies with Twitter account

**The size of the nodes is equivalent to the number of mentions of the MPs

***The color of the nodes indicates the political party they belong to: orange (CIU), yellow (ERC), red (PSC), blue (PP), green (ICV), brown (C’S) and violet (CUP)

The Mention network of the Catalan parliamentarians’ Twitter Network (January 1st 2013- March 31 2014)

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Political Polarization: Following- Follower and Mention Network

The following-follower network of the Catalan parliamentarians’ Twitter Network (January 1st 2013- March 31 2014)

The Mention network of the Catalan parliamentarians’ Twitter Network (January 1st 2013- March 31 2014)

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Opinion leaders

• Following-Follower: MPs position in the

Parliament is significant

• Retweet Network: Neither the MPs position in the Parliamentarian nor their Political Position are significant

• Mention Network: The Political position is significant (and the in-degree highly significant)

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Political Leadership CATALAN MPS’ FOLLOWING-FOLLOWER NETWORK

CATALAN MPS’ MENTION NETWORK

Rocio Martinez Pere Navarro

Oriol Junqueras Oriol Junqueras

Joana Ortega Joana Ortega

Josep Rull Marta Rovira

Jaume Collboni Marina Geli

Dolors Camats Albert Rivera

Marina Geli Oriol Amoros

Marta Rovira Alicia Camacho

Joan herrera Joan Herrera

Perea Aragonès Josep Rull

Table 5: Top 10 most followed and mentioned MPs

• In Red: Party Leaders

• In Blue: Ordinary MPs

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Political Leadership Table 5: Top 10 most retweeted MPs

CATALAN MPS’ RETWEET NETWORK

Rocio Martinez Marc SanglasMarina GeliOriol AmorosDavid CompanyonJosep RullJoan Igansi Elelena Marta Rovira Meritxell Rotge Merce Senserich

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Conclusions

Yes, Twitter is Challenging Traditional Politics because:

Facilitates communication between MPs who think differently (the polarization degree of Catalan parliamentarians Twitter network is higher in the following-follower and mention network than in the retweet network)

Ordinary MPs (different from party leaders) are emerging as the opinion leaders of the retweet network

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Limitations

The research studies the direction of the communication flows but not the content

The research is focus in one party system

The regression models could be refined

Is social Media Challenging

Traditional Politics? Social Media Lab Speaker Series, November 26, 2015

Marc Esteve Del [email protected]

@NetMev