Follow the leader! Direct and indirect flows of political communication during the 2013 Italian general election campaign. / Vaccari, Cristian; Valeriani, Augusto.
In: New Media and Society, Vol. 17, No. 7, 01.08.2015, p. 1025-1042.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Follow the leader! Direct and indirect flows of political communication during the 2013 Italian general election campaign. / Vaccari, Cristian; Valeriani, Augusto.
In: New Media and Society, Vol. 17, No. 7, 01.08.2015, p. 1025-1042.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Follow the leader! Direct and indirect flows of political communication during the 2013 Italian general election campaign
AU - Vaccari, Cristian
AU - Valeriani, Augusto
PY - 2015/8/1
Y1 - 2015/8/1
N2 - This article evaluates the potential that Twitter affords politicians to communicate to citizens directly, through messages that they broadcast to users who follow them, and indirectly, to the extent that their followers autonomously re-circulate politicians’ messages to their own contacts. Analysis of more than 2 million accounts of followers of 10 national party leaders during the Italian 2013 general election campaign shows that most users are rather inactive and have very small followings. Moreover, the most followed politicians have on average the least active and followed users, and vice versa. Users’ activity and followings are also unevenly distributed, with very tiny minorities accounting for the vast majority of tweets and followers. The most followed followers of politicians are celebrities in realms other than politics, or people who are already highly visible in the politics-media ecosystem. Our findings suggest that most of the potential for indirect communication may lie in the “vital middle” of the Twitter population who are more active than average, but are not part of the restricted elite of high-impact outliers.
AB - This article evaluates the potential that Twitter affords politicians to communicate to citizens directly, through messages that they broadcast to users who follow them, and indirectly, to the extent that their followers autonomously re-circulate politicians’ messages to their own contacts. Analysis of more than 2 million accounts of followers of 10 national party leaders during the Italian 2013 general election campaign shows that most users are rather inactive and have very small followings. Moreover, the most followed politicians have on average the least active and followed users, and vice versa. Users’ activity and followings are also unevenly distributed, with very tiny minorities accounting for the vast majority of tweets and followers. The most followed followers of politicians are celebrities in realms other than politics, or people who are already highly visible in the politics-media ecosystem. Our findings suggest that most of the potential for indirect communication may lie in the “vital middle” of the Twitter population who are more active than average, but are not part of the restricted elite of high-impact outliers.
KW - Celebrity politics
KW - lurkers
KW - election campaigns
KW - political communication
KW - political discussion
KW - social media and politics
KW - Twitter
KW - two-step flow of communication
U2 - 10.1177/1461444813511038
DO - 10.1177/1461444813511038
M3 - Article
VL - 17
SP - 1025
EP - 1042
JO - New Media and Society
JF - New Media and Society
SN - 1461-4448
IS - 7
ER -