Do Parliamentary Debates of e-Petitions Enhance Public Engagement With Parliament? An Analysis of Twitter Conversations

Abstract

The U.K. Parliament introduced an e‐petitions system in 2015 with the aim of significantly enhancing its relationship with the public. We explore whether this aim is being met through the analysis of Twitter data from conversations on e‐petitions debated in parliament. We use natural language processing, machine learning, and social network analysis of Twitter data to explore what it shows about the extent of people's engagement, the contents of Twitter e‐petition conversations, who is taking part, and how they interact. Our findings provide interesting insights into how people perceive the e‐petition procedures in terms of fairness and responsiveness, suggesting that petition parliamentary debates should be more inclusive of the original petitions’ aims. The results also point to homophily tendencies present in the Twitter e‐petition discussions.