Being a Serial Transnational Activist

Mercea, Dan; Bastos, Marco

doi:10.1111/jcc4.12150

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Indeed, other research has described bot activity levels as incessant which on Twitter, specifically, translated into “excessive amounts of tweets” (Bessi & Ferrara, 2016). Nonetheless, user activity alone has been shown to be an unreliable metric for determining the presence of bots, as prolific Twitter posters can tweet abundantly by taking turns managing Twitter accounts and pushing several hundred tweets a day with little to no automation (Bastos & Mercea, 2016; Mercea & Bastos, 2016).…”

Section: Twitterbots In Political Campaignsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News

Bastos

Mercea

2017

Social Science Computer Review

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282

197

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: AbstractIn this paper we uncover a network of Twitterbots comprising 13,493 accounts that tweeted the U.K. E.U. membership referendum, only to disappear from Twitter shortly after the ballot. We compare active users to this set of political bots with respect to temporal tweeting behavior, the size and speed of retweet cascades, and the composition of their retweet cascades (user-to-bot vs.bot-to-bot) to evidence strategies for bot deployment. Our results move forward the analysis of political bots by showing that Twitterbots can be effective at rapidly generating small to medium-sized cascades; that the retweeted content comprises user-generated hyperpartisan news, which is not strictly fake news, but whose shelf life is remarkably short; and, finally, that a botnet may be organized in specialized tiers or clusters dedicated to replicating either active users or content generated by other bots.

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Section: Twitterbots In Political Campaignsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News

Bastos

Mercea

2017

Social Science Computer Review

Self Cite

282

197

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“…Research into the communication strategies of social movements is also enriched by being able to look into patterns of diffusion of information across networks (Mercea & Bastos, 2016). New ways of sharing humorous political content originating from talk shows or social media memes can now be captured more precisely using digital trace data, and the impact of political humor can be better understood.…”

Section: Asking Better Questions: the Potential Of Css In Political Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Social Science and the Study of Political Communication

Theocharis

Jungherr

2020

Political Communication

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The challenge of disentangling political communication processes and their effects has grown with the complexity of the new political information environment. But so have scientists' toolsets and capacities to better study and understand them. We map the challenges and opportunities of developing, synthesizing, and applying data collection and analysis techniques relying primarily on computational methods and tools to answer substantive theory-driven questions in the field of political communication. We foreground the theoretical, empirical, and institutional opportunities and challenges of Computational Communication Science (CCS) that are relevant to the political communication community. We also assess understandings of CCS and highlight challenges associated with data and resource requirements, as well as those connected with the theory and semantics of digital signals. With an eye to existing practices, we elaborate on the key role of infrastructures, academic institutions, ethics, and training in computational methods. Finally, we present the six full articles and two forum contributions of this special issue illustrating methodological innovation, as well as the theoretical, practical, and institutional relevance and challenges for realizing the potential of computational methods in political communication..

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“…Yet, other authors have proposed that involvement in online and loosely organised actions more neutrally termed "information activism" may help sustain communication even beyond the conclusion of a protest (Soon and Cho 2014:550). A significant investment of time into activist communication on Twitter can, however, put a strain on relationships with family and friends, diminish performance at work and threaten job stability (Mercea and Bastos, 2016).…”

Section: Occupy Gezimentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistent Activist Communication in Occupy Gezi

2017

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: AbstractWe revisit the notion of activist persistence against the backdrop of protest communication on Twitter. We take an event-based approach and examine Occupy Gezi, a series of protests that occurred in Turkey in the early summer of 2013. By cross-referencing survey data with longitudinal Twitter data and in-depth interviews, we investigate the relationship between biographical availability, relational and organisational ties, social and personal costs to persistent activism online and on-location. Contrary to expectations, we find no clear-cut relationship between those factors and sustained commitment to participation in the occupation. We show that persistent activist communication did not feed into enduring organisational structures despite the continuous online activity observed during and beyond the peak of the Gezi occupation. The article concludes with reflections on the organisational ramifications of persistent communication and its significance in a political context posing high risks to participation in dissident politics.

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Being a Serial Transnational Activist

Cited by 22 publications

References 50 publications

The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News

The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News

Computational Social Science and the Study of Political Communication

Persistent Activist Communication in Occupy Gezi

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