TWITTERSOCIAL NETWORKS BETWEEN

POLITICIANS AND JOURNALISTS

Peter VerweijSchool of Journalism

Hogeschool Utrecht The Netherlands

Journalists and Politicians Journalist and Politicians live in Symbiosis: they are mutually dependent in process of exchange of information, news, political points of view

Twitter plays an important role in the political public debate, politicians, public and journalists

How does Twitter shapes this process of communication? What are the characteristics of the social network of Twitter relationships between politicians and journalists?

Findings about Twitter networks

Most relationships declared within Twitter are meaningless from the point of interaction

Reciprocity is low; most tweets are just broad casted

The distance between twitters users in the network is short

Twitter is about news and information, not about social networking

Hidden network in Twitter?

Who are using Twitter? And who are the major players in parties and media?

Do these players have a special position in the social network of twitter relations and what is the function of this position?

Is there an elite of journalists and politicians on Twitter which controls the process of communication?

Research Design

Selected from Twitter 150 politicians(100) and journalists/ reporters and advisers/spin doctors(50); Oct 2010;

Creating a matrix of 150X150 politicians and journalists following each other;

Using NodeXL, template for Excel, to analyze the relationships in the matrix.

This is how the total Twitter network looks like

Distributions of Tweets

Journalists are sending more tweets than politicians

Women are sending more tweets than men Greens and Liberals are sending more tweets

than socialists and right wing populist Journalists at audio-visual media slightly more

than print 150 persons have 5000 connections; diameter

4; average distance 1.6 and density 0.22 (low)

Zooming in (1): news source

Incoming relations=In Degree=Popularity; important as a news source

In Degree political parties reflect the power distribution in the coalition

Christen dem and orthodox christ dem score high All Soc score low

In Degree media: press scores higher than audio visual media

Zooming in (2): news source

In Degree for persons Leading source is a journalists working for

commercial station: Wester Followed by political leaders of Greens and

Christ Dem: Halsema and Verhagen Remarkable: high score for Wilders and one

member of socialist party: Samsom

Zooming in (3): news source

Zooming in: news gathering

Out going relations=Out Degree=outbound orientation; news gatherer

News gatherers: reporters belonging to public broadcaster score high; print journalist score lower

Wilders does not have an Out Degree Chris dem and liberals are active in news

gathering

Zooming in (1): Authority and Hubs

Google rank= central network positions; persons with authority and hub

Samsom socialist is the highest; followed by Greens(Halsema) and Public Broadcaster (Rietbergen)

Zooming in (2): Authority and Hubs

Clustering: Subgroups in the network

Clustering analysis showed 5 interesting group Density increased to 0.30 The biggest group(51 members) consisting of

socialist and greens, had also the highest number of reporters, majority from public broadcasting

One smaller cluster(18) is combination from right and left and connected to the leading source:

SP and PVV with Wester

Zooming out(1): Conclusions

The Twitter network does not show an elite of journalists and politicians controlling the communication. Density is low, and persons have different positions. However the distances are short, making interaction easy and fast

Consociatianalism/pillarization play no role in Twitter relations

Except for close connection between orthodox chris dem and their broadcaster

Biggest subgroup consists of socialist party and reporters from public broadcaster: church for the left wing

Zooming out(2): Conclusions

Twitter relations reflect the balance of power: attention goes to parties and persons in central positions at that moment

Twitter analyses is a snap shot; relations are dynamic and change

Twitter is used for news and information exchange

Twitter is also used for broadcasting and campaigning: Wilders/PVV

Thank you very much!

peter@d3-media.nl

www.d3-media.nl