Characterizing Political Talk on Twitter: a Comparison Between Public Agenda, Media Agendas, and the Twitter Agenda with Regard to Topics and Dynamics
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Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2019 Characterizing Political Talk on Twitter: A Comparison Between Public Agenda, Media Agendas, and the Twitter Agenda with Regard to Topics and Dynamics Oliver Posegga Andreas Jungherr University of Bamberg University of Konstanz [email protected] [email protected] Abstract as their perceived role in the emergence and distribution of misinformation. Social media platforms, especially Twitter, have One of the more frequently analyzed platforms is become a ubiquitous element in political campaigns. the microblogging service Twitter, which has become Although politicians, journalists, and the public a prominent space for political talk. Since the 2008 increasingly take to the service, we know little about US-Presidential election, political campaigns all over the determinants and dynamics of political talk on the world have found strong echoes in Twitter Twitter. We examine Twitter’s issue agenda based on messages commenting on candidates, parties, popular hashtags used in messages referring to campaigns, and politics in general [3]. This has made politics. We compare this Twitter agenda with the Twitter a new space in which public political talk in public agenda measured by a representative survey the form of tweets promises insights into the topics and the agendas of newspapers and television news politically vocal Twitter users pay attention to, interact programs captured by content analysis. We show that with, and comment on. Twitter, as a text-based online- the Twitter agenda had little, if any, relationship with service, permits researchers to measure these objects the public agenda. Political talk on Twitter was of political attention and thereby develop a ranked list somewhat stronger connected with mass media of topics which at any given time were the focus of coverage, albeit following channel-specific patterns politically vocal Twitter-users—a Twitter agenda. most likely determined by the attention, interests, and However, interpreting and understanding this motivations of Twitter users. agenda is challenging. While the computational nature of Twitter makes it trivially easy to determine a Twitter agenda, the data provided by Twitter falls primarily into the category of digital trace data, i.e., 1. Introduction observed traces of digital social interaction emerging from an online information system. While this type of Social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and data enables scholars to observe social interaction on Facebook have become an important part of modern an unprecedented scale [4], it usually carries little society and serve as spaces to share information and information on the context of its creation. Thus, the engage in conversations that touch on nearly every opportunities provided by digital trace data come with aspect of daily life. The growing acceptance, use, and a variety of challenges, two of which lie at the core of relevance of these technologies have inspired research this study: First, interpreting digital trace data without into a wide range of social phenomena by scholars additional information on the context of its creation is from a variety of disciplines [1]. One of the more difficult and can be subject to strong limitations [5]. prominent research lines investigates how individuals Second, it is often unclear how insights derived from use such technologies to consume, spread, and discuss digital trace data relate to established theories, news and opinions in political contexts [2]. especially when those have been developed based on Understanding political talk online has become an earlier, sparser datasets [1]. important line of research, which also has received In response to the first issue, scholars have called much public attention outside of scientific for careful consideration of the assumptions involved communities. Not least in the very public discussion in working with digital trace data to avoid validity on the role of social media in political campaigns, such issues [5, 6]. Further, mixed methods designs have been suggested to overcome the issues arising in this URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10125/59697 ISBN: 978-0-9981331-2-6 Page 2590 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) context [7, 8]; Triangulating quantitative analyses of newspaper agenda, and the television agenda digital trace data with qualitative assessments of measured by content analyses of major newspapers additional data sources (e.g. interviews, observations, [20], and television news programs [21]. This or archival data) has enabled scholars to gain insights comparison will focus on ranked lists of prominent into the causal mechanisms underlying observable topics as well as temporal dynamics. The analysis will patterns of social interaction online [9, 10]. In the show when the Twitter agenda diverges from and context of analyzing political talk online, scholars converges with the public and the media agendas. The have, for example, combined digital trace data with analysis does stop short of systematically analyzing survey data in order to measure exposure effects [11, causal links between different agendas. While these 12] and data documenting topical coverage in other causal links lie at the center of agenda-setting research media to determine mutual influence patterns [13-15]. [17], any such analysis requires first a better With regards to the second issue, Watts [16] points understanding of the characteristics of the Twitter out that while many studies, using large-scale datasets agenda which we aim to provide here. documenting social interactions online, introduced a vast number of innovative labels for seemingly new 2. Background and astonishing phenomena, at a closer look they contained little novelty. Making a connection between the phenomena emerging from platforms like Twitter Agenda setting is one of the pillars of political and established theories requires a rigorous communication research [17]. The approach relies on reexamination of their underlying assumptions in the identifying ranked lists of issues in political media light of the characteristics and affordances of such coverage and on the public’s mind. This is achieved by platforms [1, 5]. We build on these insights in content analysis of political coverage in newspapers comparing political agendas emerging from survey and on television and by population surveys. Two of responses, journalistic coverage in newspapers and the basic and often replicated findings of agenda- television, and from political talk on Twitter. setting research are that both lists—the media and the Traditionally, communication research has seen an public agenda—correlate strongly and that the media agenda as an ordered list of “topics the media and agenda at a given time influences the public agenda at public are paying attention to and regard as a later time [17]. Issue salience thus appears to flow important,” [17, xiii]. In the beginning, agenda-setting from the media to the public agenda. While early research focused on the analysis of public and media agenda-setting research took the media agenda more agendas. This focus has been gradually expanded to or less as a given, increasingly researchers also also include agendas of politicians, legislators, interest focused on factors influencing the emergence of the groups, and others. A further extension to include media agenda. With this also came an extension of prominent topics emerging from political talk on attention to other possible agendas (such as the policy Twitter looks like a logical next step [e.g., 13, 18]. agenda) and interactions between different agendas. Still, the very nature of Twitter raises issues that With the growing adoption of the internet, agenda- researchers have to address in their interpretation of setting research has increasingly focused on digital Twitter-based agendas. Especially two characteristics services and their interaction with public and media of Twitter make it likely for a list of prominent agendas. Prior studies demonstrated that media political topics identified on Twitter to diverge from coverage of political issues led to an increase in issue- lists based on answers given in surveys or political related activity on electronic bulletin boards [e.g., 22]. media coverage. These are Twitter’s data generating Issues emphasized on political candidates’ websites, process as a microblogging service—affording users and blogs were shown to influence issue salience in to post pithy expressions of their thoughts, reactions, the media [e.g., 23]. A special focus of agenda-setting or concerns of the current moment—and its skewed research has been the influence of blogs on traditional user base—unrepresentative of the general population. media. The causal relationship and strength of the In this article, we test this assumption by transference of issue salience between traditional systematically comparing the political Twitter agenda media and political blogs are contested. On the one to the public agenda, the newspaper agenda, and the hand, Lee [24] and Heim [25] found a strong television agenda during the months leading up to the correlation between traditional media coverage and 2013 federal election in Germany. blog agendas. On the other hand, Meraz [26] showed Based on data collected during the campaign for that blogs did not uniformly follow issue cues given Germany’s federal election in 2013, we compare the by traditional media. Issue agendas of left-leaning agenda emerging from political talk