{"title":"Building Political Hashtag Communities: A Multiplex Network Analysis of U.S. Senators on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections","authors":"Yunus Emre Orhan, Harun Pirim, Yusuf Akbulut","doi":"10.3390/computation11120238","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how U.S. senators strategically used hashtags to create political communities on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections. We propose a way to model topic-based implicit interactions among Twitter users and introduce the concept of Building Political Hashtag Communities (BPHC). Using multiplex network analysis, we provide a comprehensive view of elites’ behavior. Through AI-driven topic modeling on real-world data, we observe that, at a general level, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC. Yet, when disaggregating the network across layers, this trend does not uniformly persist. Specifically, while Republicans engage more intensively in BPHC discussions related to immigration, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC in topics related to identity and women. However, only a select group of Democratic actors engage in BPHC for topics on labor and the environment—domains where Republicans scarcely, if at all, participate in BPHC efforts. This research contributes to the understanding of digital political communication, offering new insights into echo chamber dynamics and the role of politicians in polarization.","PeriodicalId":52148,"journal":{"name":"Computation","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Computation","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/computation11120238","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MATHEMATICS, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study examines how U.S. senators strategically used hashtags to create political communities on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections. We propose a way to model topic-based implicit interactions among Twitter users and introduce the concept of Building Political Hashtag Communities (BPHC). Using multiplex network analysis, we provide a comprehensive view of elites’ behavior. Through AI-driven topic modeling on real-world data, we observe that, at a general level, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC. Yet, when disaggregating the network across layers, this trend does not uniformly persist. Specifically, while Republicans engage more intensively in BPHC discussions related to immigration, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC in topics related to identity and women. However, only a select group of Democratic actors engage in BPHC for topics on labor and the environment—domains where Republicans scarcely, if at all, participate in BPHC efforts. This research contributes to the understanding of digital political communication, offering new insights into echo chamber dynamics and the role of politicians in polarization.
期刊介绍:
Computation a journal of computational science and engineering. Topics: computational biology, including, but not limited to: bioinformatics mathematical modeling, simulation and prediction of nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) and protein sequences, structure and functions mathematical modeling of pathways and genetic interactions neuroscience computation including neural modeling, brain theory and neural networks computational chemistry, including, but not limited to: new theories and methodology including their applications in molecular dynamics computation of electronic structure density functional theory designing and characterization of materials with computation method computation in engineering, including, but not limited to: new theories, methodology and the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) optimisation techniques and/or application of optimisation to multidisciplinary systems system identification and reduced order modelling of engineering systems parallel algorithms and high performance computing in engineering.