Examining political mobilization of online communities through e-petitioning behavior in We the People

Abstract

This study aims to reveal patterns of e-petition co-signing behavior that are indicative of the political mobilization of online “communities”. We discuss the case of We the People, a US national experiment in the use of social media technology to enable users to propose and solicit support for policy suggestions to the White House. We apply Baumgartner and Jones's work on agenda setting and punctuated equilibrium, which suggests that policy issues may lie dormant for periods of time until some event triggers attention from the media, interest groups, and elected representatives. In the case study presented, we focus on 21 petitions initiated during the week after the Sandy Hook shooting (14–21 December 2012) in opposition to gun control or in support of policy proposals that are alternatives to gun control, which we view as mobilized efforts to maintain stability and equilibrium in a policy system threatening to change. Using market basket analysis and social network analysis we found a core group of petitions in the “support law-abiding gun owners” theme that were highly connected and four “communities” of e-petitioners mobilizing in opposition to change in gun control policies and in favor of alternative proposals.

Cultural Public Sphere: Tracking the Yogyakarta City Policy Agenda through the #JogjaOraDidol Hashtag on Twitter

“…One example of this identity can be found in the case of the revolution in Tunisia where the dissemination and framing of the narrative took place in social media (Lim, 2013b). For that case, the dimensions of interaction on social media can be analyzed using Social Network Analysis (SNA) to find different communities as indicated by previous studies (see : Batorski & Grzywińska, 2017;Dumas et al, 2015).…”

Introducing textual analysis tools for policy informatics

“…In Figure 1, the yellow-orange line is the search trend of the keyword "animal," which peaked during the second-phase of WtP, consistent with our finding in the analysis (Table 5 & 6). This suggests that petition topics and mobilization level may reflect triggering social/political interests and events [9,21,27]. On the other hand, petitions regarding certain topics (white, energy, and veteran) consistently gather significantly fewer signatures than the average number of signatures.…”

e-petitioning

“…In two previous studies using WtP petition data [16,17], we focused on 33 petitions that were initiated the week after the Sandy Hook Shooting (December 14-21, 2012) involving gun control and that collectively received a response from President Obama. We applied Baumgartner and Jones's [18] work on agenda setting and punctuated equilibrium, which suggests that policy issues may lie dormant until a "focusing event" triggers attention from political figures, interest groups, and the media.…”

“…In one study [19], we focused on the 12 "pro" gun control petitions and in another study [20] we looked at the 21 petitions that argued against gun control, advocated improvements in mental health care, and proposed arming protectors within the school system. Techniques from market basket analysis were used to explore questions about whether individuals who signed one "pro" gun control petition also signed other "pro" gun control petitions.…”