Examining the role of "Place" in Twitter Networks through the Lens of Contentious Politics

Jeff Hemsley, Josef Eckert

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

From Tehran Square to Gezi Park, Twitter is an emergent tactic of protestors in the public square. Our work utilizes the theoretical framework of contentious politics and its human geographic extension as a framework for examining the role of "place" in Twitter-based networks of resistance. We examine Twitter traffic about local instantiations of Occupy Wall Street across eight cities. The study addresses mutual communications between Twitter participants in hashtags related to each of these local instantiations. This work explores the role of place as a constitutive component of these networks. To do so, we employ descriptive statistical and chi-square tests to examine the significance of user-defined metadata regarding place to the exchanges between users within a network. We conclude that place matters and point to future directions in computational and traditional qualitative analysis, spatial-temporal studies of social media, and the effects of locational propinquity for network development.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 47th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2014
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages1844-1853
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781479925049
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2014 - Waikoloa, HI, United States
Duration: Jan 6 2014Jan 9 2014

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
ISSN (Print)1530-1605

Other

Other47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWaikoloa, HI
Period1/6/141/9/14

Keywords

  • Social movements
  • Twitter
  • Place
  • Social Network Analysis

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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