The Co-retweeted Network and Its Applications for Measuring the Perceived Political Polarization

Samantha Finn, Eni Mustafaraj, Panagiotis T. Metaxas

2014

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel network, the co-retweeted network, that is constructed as the undirected weighted graph that connects highly visible accounts who have been retweeted by members of the audience during some real-time event. Like bibliographics co-citation used to indicate that two papers treat a related subject matter, co-retweeting is used to indicate that two accounts present similar opinions in an online discussion. Thus, the co-retweeted network can be seen as a form of consulting the opinion of the crowd that is following the discussion about the similarity (or difference) of positions expressed by the highly visible accounts. When applied on political conversations related to some event, the co-retweeted network enables the measurement of the polarity of political orientation of major players (including news organizations) based on the views of the audience. It can also measure the degree of polarization of the event itself.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Finn S., Mustafaraj E. and T. Metaxas P. (2014). The Co-retweeted Network and Its Applications for Measuring the Perceived Political Polarization . In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST, ISBN 978-989-758-023-9, pages 276-284. DOI: 10.5220/0004788702760284

in Bibtex Style

@conference{webist14,
author={Samantha Finn and Eni Mustafaraj and Panagiotis T. Metaxas},
title={The Co-retweeted Network and Its Applications for Measuring the Perceived Political Polarization},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST,},
year={2014},
pages={276-284},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004788702760284},
isbn={978-989-758-023-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST,
TI - The Co-retweeted Network and Its Applications for Measuring the Perceived Political Polarization
SN - 978-989-758-023-9
AU - Finn S.
AU - Mustafaraj E.
AU - T. Metaxas P.
PY - 2014
SP - 276
EP - 284
DO - 10.5220/0004788702760284