Research Proposal: A Multilevel Analysis of Socio-political Context & Network Effects on #IdleNoMore Tweet Sentiment

• In Event: 315 - Open Refereed Roundtables Session. B. Table 01 Shared and Contested Spaces
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 11. Collective Action

Abstract

#IdleNoMore is a grassroots social movement lead by Indigenous peoples that emerged in late 2012. The movement “quickly spread through community-based and social media networks, to be the largest transformative movement for Indigenous rights in Canada since Oka in 2002” (Graveline, 2013 pp. 293). Indigenous youth often took to social media to call upon their leaders for action, and many activist events were organized through social media outlets, especially Facebook and Twitter (Graveline, 2013); however little is know about the mechanisms whereby people come to develop/alter their understanding of Indigenous socio-political issues, both in their own personal social and political contexts, as well as in broader Canadian society more generally. Pursuing these issues, I propose a multilevel model study of Twitter users’ affective orientations toward Indigenous issues and social activism using the sentiment of Twitter ‘tweets’ as a measure of the level of positivity/negativity one feels toward Indigenous activism. In doing so, I propose the use of various Twitter network measures (centrality/influence/geographic data) as well as indicators of local political context in the area of tweet origin (for e.g. presence of ongoing/contentious land claims) as predictors of tweet sentiment. The assumption is that affective character of tweets pertaining to #IdleNoMore will be dependent upon various Twitter network effects such as centrality and density, as well as effects of local political climate surrounding issues of Indigenous activism.

Author

• Adam Colin Howe, University of British Columbia