The influence of external political events on social networks: the case of the Brexit Twitter Network

• Published in: Journal of ambient intelligence and humanized computing Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 4363 - 4375
• Main Authors: Mora-Cantallops, Marçal, Sánchez-Alonso, Salvador, Visvizi, Anna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.04.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Big Data; Communication; Computational Intelligence; Data analysis; Data mining; Digital media; Elections; Engineering; EU membership; Influence; Original Research; Politics; Referendums; Robotics and Automation; Social network analysis; Social networks; Steering; User behavior; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; Voter behavior; Voters; Brexit; Twitter; Political events; Social network analysis; Event study; Information diffusion
• ISSN: 1868-5137; 1868-5145
• DOI: 10.1007/s12652-019-01273-7

The social media debate preceding the 2016 Brexit referendum represents a yet another instance of the growing role of social networking sites, also known as social media, in steering the dynamics of the socio-political process nowadays. Considering the scale of the phenomenon as well as the variety of concerns it raises vis-à-vis transparency, equality, representation, and legitimacy of the political process, it is imperative to query the mechanisms behind the relationship that unfolds between social media, their users and the political process. To do this, this paper employs event study analysis and recent advances in data mining and data analysis to examine how certain non-virtual political events constituent of the Brexit debate had been played out in the social media realm and influenced the social media users’ stance toward the very question of Brexit. This composite methodological approach that this study adopts allows to measure how non-virtual political events influenced the network of users who discussed the withdrawal of the UK from the EU in Twitter in the weeks prior to the Brexit referendum. The outcomes of this study suggest that social networking sites play a pivotal role not only on how information is diffused over the network but also on user’s message creation, dissemination behaviour and the shape of the social network itself.