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Copyright by Joseph Jai-Sung Yoo 2019 Copyright by Joseph Jai-sung Yoo 2019 The Dissertation Committee for Joseph Jai-sung Yoo Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Opinion Leaders on Twitter Immigration Issue Networks: Combining Agenda-Setting Effects and the Two-Step Flow of Information Committee: Thomas Johnson, Supervisor Gina Chen Wenhong Chen Maxwell McCombs Dhiraj Murthy Opinion Leaders on Twitter Immigration Issue Networks: Combining Agenda-Setting Effects and the Two-Step Flow of Information by Joseph Jai-sung Yoo Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2019 Dedication To my Heavenly Father and To my parents, Jung Yul Yoo, and Jeong Yeun Choi For their everlasting love and support Acknowledgements Saying just “thank you” is not enough to express my gratitude during my graduate life. I believe that writing my dissertation is a big achievement in my life, costing my enormous time, and continuous effort. With tremendous supports of my family, friends, and academic colleagues, I could successfully finish my dissertation. Especially, I am so much indebted to my committee members, Dr. Thomas Johnson, Dr. Maxwell McCombs, Dr. Gina Chen, Dr. Wenhong Chen, and Dr. Dhiraj Murthy. First and foremost, I would like to express my huge gratitude to Dr. Thomas Johnson. We shared a lot of memories since 2011 when I started my academic career. His Theory class sparked me to be interested in social media opinion leaders, my dissertation topic. We worked together, and I could learn his insights, knowledge and passion. We also spent our pastime together, which would help me to refresh my academic life. He is my academic and personal role model. Also, my committee members wholeheartedly provided insightful knowledge for my dissertation. Dr. Maxwell McCombs suggested concise and focused comments that would lead me to think about my research ideas in detail. Dr. Wenhong Chen’s sharp suggestions were fundamental in setting research methodology. I could learn a lot about social media public sphere from Dr. Gina Chen, and computational data analysis from Dr. Dhiraj Murthy. Further, I want to express my sincere appreciation to my great colleagues, especially Magdalena Saldana, Margaret Ng, Shuning Lu, Kyser Lough, Jeremy Shermak, Ever Figueroa, Clare Boyle, Kelsey Whipple, Martin Johannes Riedl, Jordon Brown, Seokho Lee, Ji won Kim, Hyeri Jung, Taeyoung Lee, Claire Lee, Hogeun Seo, Miki Tanikawa, Saif Shahin, Cindy Pei Zheng, Angela Lee, Danielle Kilgo, Lourdes Cueva v Chacón, Barbara Audet, Logan Molyleux, and Kathleen McEloy. I was especially indebted to Arnold Chung and Myungsang Lee, who helped me learn big data computational analysis skills using R and Python. They emotionally and intellectually supported me, and I would really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I am very grateful to my parents, Jung Yul Yoo and Jeong Yeun Choi, and my younger brother Jaemyung Yoo. My parents heartily supported and prayed eagerly for me so that I was able to complete my dissertation. Whenever I needed emotional supports, my family always helped me out. Time flies although I think I am a first-year Master’s student at the School of Journalism in 2011. Now, I am looking forward to starting my new chapter as an academic scholar who can contribute to the development of Communication and Social Science. I am sure that I could meet great colleagues in the future like great scholars I have ever met in my life. vi Abstract Opinion Leaders on Twitter Immigration Issue Networks: Combining Agenda-Setting Effects and the Two-Step Flow of Information Joseph Jai-sung Yoo, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 Supervisor: Thomas Johnson This dissertation focuses on opinion leaders on the Twitter issue networks to examine the two-step flow of information and agenda-setting effects. It analyzes the US immigration issue network as a case study because it is controversial on Twitter, and many elites such as lawyers and politicians who can influence others’ opinions are engaged in Twitter debates. Twitter is an important platform for active public debates, serving as a networked public sphere that can be used as a source and disseminator of information. Research has shown that communication patterns on the networked public spheres vary, including top-down, bottom-up, and side-by-side communications. This dissertation asked the following questions: (1) what is the shape of the Twitter immigration issue network? (2) who are Twitter opinion leaders, and what are their characteristics? and (3) who sets the agenda on Twitter: news media, opinion leaders, or the public? To answer those questions, this dissertation employs (1) social network analysis to identify immigration issue networks and opinion leaders, (2) hierarchical vii linear regressions to examine factors that can predict opinion leadership, and (3) Granger causality tests to measure the longitudinal agenda-setting effects of each group (news media, opinion leaders, and the public). The author differentiated between the retweet and mention networks because while the retweet network is intended to disseminate information, the mention network is intended to elicit responses, motivating users to participate in Twitter conversations. Through social network analysis, the author found divisions among clusters. Especially, the retweet network was classified as a polarized network and the mention network was described as a community cluster. The results of hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that elite status, verified status, the number of followers, and individual issue involvement were common predictors of opinion leadership. The results of time-series Granger causality tests showed a mixture of top-down and bottom- up agenda-setting effects. This dissertation extends our theoretical understanding of opinion leaders based on traditional theories including two-step flow of information and agenda-setting effects. A key practical implication is that active Twitter users can be opinion leaders and can contribute to setting an issue agenda. viii Table of Contents List of Tables .................................................................................................................... xii! List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiv! Chapter 1: Introduction .....................................................................................................1! Background .................................................................................................................3! Theory .........................................................................................................................6! Methods ......................................................................................................................9! Organization ..............................................................................................................13! Significance of the study ...........................................................................................18! Chapter 2: Literature Review ..........................................................................................20! Communications on Twitter .....................................................................................22! Motivations to follow other accounts, retweet other tweets, and mention other users ....................................................................................................................26! Issue public: US immigration policy ........................................................................28! Timeline of US immigration policy from presidential election ................................31! Twitter as a networked public sphere .......................................................................32! Selective exposure, polarization, and opinion leaders ..............................................38! Two-step flow of information and opinion leadership .............................................42! Online opinion leaders: (1) similarities and differences with traditional opinion leaders .................................................................................................................44! Online opinion leaders: (2) the presence of curators ................................................47! Twitter opinion leaders .............................................................................................51! Issue involvement: a key to be an opinion leader .....................................................54! ix Contextual factors to be opinion leaders ...................................................................55! The definition of opinion leaders, tweets and twitter users ......................................58! Twitter communication affordances and opinion leadership ....................................60! Agenda-setting: who sets the agenda and how? .......................................................65! The combination of two-step flow of information and agenda-setting theory .........67! Reasons to conduct longitudinal agenda-setting studies for opinion leadership ......70! Predicting longitudinal agenda-setting effects ..........................................................72! Chapter 3: Methodology .................................................................................................74!
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