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Homophily Versus Prestige: Adding Topics to the Explanation of Link Formation on the Web

Fri, May 26, 8:00 to 9:15, Hilton San Diego Bayfront, Floor: 3, Aqua 305

Abstract

Previous research has identified prestige and different aspects of homophily, mainly the actor type and their position, as the drivers of link formation on the Web. With some exceptions, the role of topics has been neglected, although debates primarily form around issues and their content plays a central role in explaining the political topology of the Internet. Whereas relationships based on the actors’ like-mindedness are feared to lead to echo chambers, homophily based on topics can help to integrate discourses that might otherwise become fragmented. We combine these factors as explanatory variables in a model to assess the relative strength of prestige and homophily in terms of actor type, country, position and topic. Using an LDA topic model we analyze the climate change discourse in a US-hyperlink-network gathered in May 2013 and test how relevant the different factors are for the actors’ link formation with an exponential random graph model.

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