October 2016 Analyzing MEPs’ connections on Twitter: who’s worth following? Most popular media outlets, journalists, think tanks, opinion leaders and politicians. To perform some of the analyses for our project ThinkingAbout.EU, we collected a list of 643 ​ ​ ​ Twitter accounts that covers the presence on the social network of the 751 Members of the European Parliament currently in office. Once we had a complete list (that you can find on our Github), in October 2016 we decided to ​ ​ check all the accounts followed by these MEPs. Among them, we took into consideration the first 8000 ones, ranked by the number of MEPs following them (e.g. the first one is Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu @JunckerEU, followed by 401 Members of the Parliament). ​ Using the Louvain algorithm to analyze this network, we were able to detect emerging ​ communities. A community is a group of accounts with a density of connections higher than the average. ​ ​ The most connected account inside a community is considered the most central ​ one. ​ Analyzing 8000 accounts, we were able to identify 10 communities. In each one of them, we were able to see the MEPs accounts we started with and the followed accounts. We used MEPs’ nationalities to describe each community since, based on what the algorithm showed us, it was pretty clear that MEPs from the same country tend to be grouped in the same community. This happens because — and it’s a first discovery from this analysis, even if it could be expected — MEPs tend to follow media, journalists and politicians from their own country. So, two members from the same country have in many cases more followed accounts in common, than two members from different countries. This offered us an interesting view of what members elected in each country consider worth to follow. Which journalists? Which media outlets? Are national politicians more important than European ones? Who are the opinion leaders? What role do specialized media have? This research has been originally published on our Medium account. ​ ​ Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu WHO We are Elif Lab, a data company that provides analyses on politics and institutions and we ​ ​ are working on a project called ThinkingAbout.EU that analyzes various data coming from ​ the European institutions. Contact us on our website www.eliflab.com or send a mail to [email protected] ​ ​ ​ INDEX Analyzing MEPs’ connections on Twitter: who’s worth following? MEPs’ communities 4 ​ Greece and Cyprus: Greek and Cypriot MEPs — Twitter Community 4 ​ France (and Belgium): French and Belgian MEPs — Twitter Community 5 ​ Poland: Polish MEPs — Twitter Community 7 ​ Italy: Italian MEPs — Twitter Community 9 ​ Denmark: Danish MEPs — Twitter Community 10 ​ Spain: Spanish MEPs — Twitter Community 12 ​ Netherlands (and Belgium): Dutch MEPs — Twitter Community 14 ​ Sweden: Swedish MEPs — Twitter Community 15 ​ Austria: Austrian MEPs — Twitter Community 16 ​ Germany: German MEPs — Twitter Community 18 ​ United Kingdom: British MEPs — Twitter Community 19 ​ Conclusions 21 ​ EU Media outlets 21 ​ EU Politicians 23 ​ Differences in the communities’ composition 24 ​ Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu MEPs’ communities Greece and Cyprus: Greek and Cypriot MEPs — Twitter Community The first community we analyze gathers together 16 MEPs from Greece and 4 from Cyprus and the accounts they follow. The most central account is the one of the journalist Nikos Chatzinikolaou (@NChatzinikolaou) closely followed by the one of Michail Ignatiou (@mignatiou), ​ ​ ​ ​ correspondent from the United States. Other popular journalists are there: Sia Kossioni (@SiaKossioni) and Sofia Papaioannou (@Sofpap360) from Alpha TV. ​ ​ ​ ​ The most central news media are, instead, Amna News (@amna_news), Enikos ​ ​ (@enikos_gr) and Real.gr (@Real_gr). ​ ​ ​ ​ A big emphasis (especially compared to other communities) is for politicians operating at Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu national level: we find many of them in the top 30 central accounts. First one is Nikos Pappas @nikospappas16 (current Minister of State), but of course we have premier Alexis ​ ​ Tsipras (@atsipras), deputy prime minister Yannīs Dragasakīs (@YDragasakis) and ​ ​ ​ ​ Governor of Attica Rena Dorou (@renadourou). There’s also space for economist John ​ ​ Milios (@john_milios) former Syriza economic advisor. ​ ​ At the European level, MEPs from Greece and Cyprus prefer to follow President Juncker (@JunckerEU) and Cypriot Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid & Crisis Management ​ ​ Christos Stylianides (@StylianidesEU). No other commissioner appears in the first 30 ​ ​ accounts. Interesting to note, Members are also following Vangelis Demiris (@vangelisdemiris), ​ ​ multimedia editor for the Commission, who is the only “insider” providing European news in top accounts. France (and Belgium): French and Belgian MEPs — Twitter Community Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu This second community shows closeness among French Members (65) and some of the Belgians (7). This community is quite different in its composition from the Greek and Cypriot one. No national politicians are among the top 30 accounts. Instead we can find various media outlets: the most central one is Le Monde (@lemondefr). ​ ​ Agence France-Presse (@afpfr), France Info (@franceinfo), France Inter (@franceinter), ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Libération (@libe) are also at the top of the most followed accounts. ​ ​ Looking for journalists we bump into Jean Quatremer (@quatremer), European ​ ​ correspondent for Libération, François Beaudonnet (@beaudonnet) France2, Jean-Jacques ​ ​ Bourdin (@JJBourdin_RMC) RMC, Christophe Barbier (@C_Barbier) L’Express and Aurélie ​ ​ ​ ​ Herbemont (@aurelherbemont) from Europe1. ​ ​ News about European politics are delivered by specialized French media such as Toute l’Europe (@touteleurope), but also by EurActiv (@EurActiv), which is in top 30 accounts ​ ​ ​ ​ with both its generalist account and the French one (@EurActiv_FR). ​ ​ President Juncker (@JunckerEU) is in this community the only member of the Commission ​ ​ appearing in the top 30 accounts. What about the Council? No sign of Donald Tusk so far. Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu Poland: Polish MEPs — Twitter Community The Polish community is generated by the connections of 32 Polish MEPs. The most central account is the one of Radosław Sikorski (@sikorskiradek) now senior fellow ​ ​ at the Harvard University’s Center for European Studies but in the past Marshal of the Sejm and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In second place, we find Donald Tusk (in this community both with @donaldtusk and @eucopresident) Polish president of the European Council, ​ ​ ​ several positions above Commission President Juncker (@JunckerEU). ​ ​ Paweł Graś (@pawelgras), senior political and communication advisor to the president Tusk ​ ​ also seems to be very popular among Polish MEPs. The Polish Community is rich of politicians operating at national level like the Prime Minister Beata Szydło (@PremierRP), Jan Vincent-Rostowski (@janrostowski) former ​ ​ ​ ​ Minister of Finance in Poland, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz (@KosiniakKamysz) leader of ​ Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu the Polish People Party, Paweł Zalewski (@ZalewskiPawel) former Member of the European ​ ​ Parliament and Agnieszka Pomaska (@pomaska) member of the Polish Parliament and ​ ​ Vice-chair of EU Affairs Committee. Exploring media and journalists, we can see the most followed media outlets are TVN24 (@tvn24), TVP INFO (@tvp_info) and the political magazine 300 Polityka (@300polityka). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Leading journalists are, instead, Konrad Piasecki (@KonradPiasecki) from Radio Zet, ​ ​ political commentator Igor Janke (@IgorJanke), Krzysztof Skórzyński from TVN ​ ​ (@skorzynski) and Bartosz Węglarczyk (@bweglarczyk) from Onet. ​ ​ ​ ​ Among top 30 accounts, we find a political think tank too: Instytut Obywatelski (@IObywatelski), affiliated with the Civic Platform Party. ​ ​ Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu Italy: Italian MEPs — Twitter Community The Italian Community (based on the connections of 65 Italian MEPs) mostly contains media outlets: news agencies (@Adnkronos, @Agenzia_Ansa), all news channels ​ ​ ​ ​ (@SkyTg24, @RaiNews), newspapers (@Corriere, @Repubblicait, @sole24ore, @LaStampa, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ @fattoquotidiano) and media specialized on European politics (@eunewsit, @ansaeuropa). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ A very distinctive trait is that there’s only one journalist in the top 30 central accounts: Mario Calabresi (@mariocalabresi) director of the newspaper La Repubblica. ​ ​ Differently from what we saw for the Polish Community, we cannot find many national politicians among the most followed accounts. There’s of course the premier Matteo Renzi (@matteorenzi) and the other two politicians there are Enrico Letta former Prime Minister ​ ​ now President of the Jacques Delors Institute (@EnricoLetta) and Laura Boldrini who ​ ​ presides the Camera (@lauraboldrini). ​ ​ Elif Lab www.eliflab.com [email protected] ​ ThinkingAboutEU www.thinkingabout.eu @thinkingabouteu