Journal of Communication· 2014Q1
Echo Chamber or Public Sphere? Predicting Political Orientation and Measuring Political Homophily in Twitter Using Big Data
- 1,140citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2014year
Short summary
Twitter users exhibit political homophily, with Democrats generally showing higher levels than Republicans, though Republicans following official party accounts are more homophilous than Democrats. Homophily is also stronger in reciprocal follower relationships.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Twitter users can be classified as Democrat or Republican using machine learning on shared political content.
- Democrats generally exhibit higher levels of political homophily than Republicans.
- Republicans following official Republican accounts show higher homophily than Democrats.
- Political homophily is more pronounced in reciprocal follower networks compared to non-reciprocated ones.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
This paper investigates political homophily on Twitter. Using a combination of machine learning and social network analysis we classify users as Democrats or as Republicans based on the political content shared. We then investigate political homophily both in the network of reciprocated and nonreciprocated ties. We find that structures of political homophily differ strongly between Democrats and Republicans. In general, Democrats exhibit higher levels of political homophily. But Republicans who follow official Republican accounts exhibit higher levels of homophily than Democrats. In addition, levels of homophily are higher in the network of reciprocated followers than in the nonreciprocated network. We suggest that research on political homophily on the Internet should take the political culture and practices of users seriously. © 2014 International Communication Association.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Communication, 2014 · DOI ↗
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Field: Communication
CommunicationSocial Sciences