The Adoption and Use of Twitter as a Representational Tool among Members of the European Parliament

Scherpereel, John A.; Wohlgemuth, Jerry; Schmelzinger, Margaret

doi:10.1080/23745118.2016.1151125

Cited by 33 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…More recently, Dal Maso et al [28] examined the community structure with respect to political coalitions and government structure in the Italian Parliament. Scherpereel et al [29] examined the constituency, personal, and strategic characteristics of MEPs that influence their tweeting behavior. They suggested that Twitter's characteristics, like immediacy, interactivity, spontaneity, personality, and informality, are likely to resonate with political parties across Europe.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohesion and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Roll-Call Votes and Twitter Activities

et al. 2016

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We study the cohesion within and the coalitions between political groups in the Eighth European Parliament (2014–2019) by analyzing two entirely different aspects of the behavior of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the policy-making processes. On one hand, we analyze their co-voting patterns and, on the other, their retweeting behavior. We make use of two diverse datasets in the analysis. The first one is the roll-call vote dataset, where cohesion is regarded as the tendency to co-vote within a group, and a coalition is formed when the members of several groups exhibit a high degree of co-voting agreement on a subject. The second dataset comes from Twitter; it captures the retweeting (i.e., endorsing) behavior of the MEPs and implies cohesion (retweets within the same group) and coalitions (retweets between groups) from a completely different perspective. We employ two different methodologies to analyze the cohesion and coalitions. The first one is based on Krippendorff’s Alpha reliability, used to measure the agreement between raters in data-analysis scenarios, and the second one is based on Exponential Random Graph Models, often used in social-network analysis. We give general insights into the cohesion of political groups in the European Parliament, explore whether coalitions are formed in the same way for different policy areas, and examine to what degree the retweeting behavior of MEPs corresponds to their co-voting patterns. A novel and interesting aspect of our work is the relationship between the co-voting and retweeting patterns.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohesion and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Roll-Call Votes and Twitter Activities

et al. 2016

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“…5 We also integrate Preferential vote and District magnitude. Scherpereel et al (2017) and Obholzer and Daniel (2016) find that preferential voting arrangements affect Twitter behavior. The latter authors find a significant interaction between preferential voting and district magnitude ("[legislators] from preferential voting systems are far more likely to be active on Twitter when they hail from districts of a larger magnitude.…”

Section: Study Design Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This approach-which compares individuals' Twitter behaviors across different "territorial moments" in their political careers-is new. While researchers have examined subnational (Bernhard & Dohle, 2015;Bruns & Highfield, 2013;Cook, 2016;Grant et al, 2010;Highfield, 2013;Larsson & Moe, 2013;Riarh & Roy, 2014), national, and supranational (Larsson, 2015;Obholzer & Daniel, 2016;Scherpereel, Wohlgemuth, & Schmelzinger, 2017) politicians on Twitter, there have been few attempts to isolate the effects of institutional setting on Twitter use. In examining politicians' day-to-day Twitter behaviors and attending to potential differences across territorial levels, we seek to fill two of the three gaps in the "politicians on Twitter" literature that Larsson and Svensson (2014) have recently identified.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Institutional Setting Affect Legislators’ Use of Twitter?

Scherpereel¹,

Wohlgemuth²,

Lievens³

2017

Policy & Internet

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This study investigates whether members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and members of national parliaments (MNPs) use social media in distinctive ways. Specifically, it examines whether institutional differences affect the frequency, quality, and nature of legislators’ Twitter communications. Controlling for factors that previous studies find significant, we select for two kinds of legislators: (i) MEPs who are serving in the 2014–19 term and who served as MNPs immediately before their election to the EP and (ii) MEPs who served in the 2009–14 term and have subsequently become MNPs. We compare selected legislators’ tweets over a three‐month period during their EP tenures with their Twitter behaviors over an analogous period during their NP tenures. The statistical results demonstrate few significant differences between MEPs and MNPs. A preliminary qualitative probe suggests that legislators’ tweet patterns may owe less to the institution they serve and more to their policy responsibilities and leadership positions within particular institutions.

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“…Early studies found that legislators' party membership, age, gender, and seniority determine who uses Twitter and how often (Jackson & Lilleker, 2011;Lassen & Brown, 2011;Hemphill, Otterbacher, & Shapiro, 2013;Peterson, 2012). More recent research on the members of the European Parliament (MEPs), moreover, shows that voting systems, district magnitude, and seat safety are also important factors (Obholzer & Daniel, 2016;Scherpereel, Wohlgemuth, & Schmelzinger, 2016); presence and activity on Twitter increase with the incentives that these factors create for individual legislators to cultivate a personal vote. With regard to the content, Twitter seems to mimic legislative communication practices in both form and substance, where legislators 'broadcast' their typical messages to voters in a way that leaves very little room for interactive communication (Golbeck, Grimes, & Rogers, 2010;Hemphill et al, 2013;Jackson & Lilleker, 2011;Saebø, 2011).…”

Section: Case Selection Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic communication of EU affairs: an analysis of legislative behaviour on Twitter

Umit¹

2017

The Journal of Legislative Studies

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An influential literature underlines how much parliamentary communication of European Union (EU) affairs could offer to democracy in the EU. Yet members of parliaments (MPs) seem unmoved by their potential. MPs are strategic about their communication, and this study questions the suitability of EU affairs to their re-election strategies. Analysing the messages posted on Twitter by regional and national MPs from Ireland and the United Kingdom over a fourmonth period, this article shows that clear electoral safety and strong political responsibility increase the communication of EU affairs. This suggests that the low electoral benefits and the high political complexity of EU affairs are significant deterrents to parliamentary communication of these affairs. As a result, the voices of Eurosceptic MPs echo disproportionately louder on Twitter.

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The Adoption and Use of Twitter as a Representational Tool among Members of the European Parliament

Cited by 33 publications

References 37 publications

Cohesion and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Roll-Call Votes and Twitter Activities

Cohesion and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Roll-Call Votes and Twitter Activities

Does Institutional Setting Affect Legislators’ Use of Twitter?

Strategic communication of EU affairs: an analysis of legislative behaviour on Twitter

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