Tracing Twitter Buzz

• In Event: Attention and Diffusion Processes

Abstract

Social media, especially Twitter, is a unique platform that reflects temporal issue attention dynamics. For a heated and polarized issue such as gun policy debates surrounding mass shootings events, Twitter has been a useful online sphere where individual actors, organizations, and media as well as political elites construct and redefine the discourses. Looking at specific technological features of Twitter such as hashtags and handles (user accounts for @mentions and retweets), this study conducted cluster analyses for hashtags and handles that frequently used in the mass shootings and gun-related debates over a 3-year time period from 2012 to 2014. By identifying 30 hashtag clusters and 40 handle clusters, this study investigates temporal patterns of cluster amplification and decline, to map out the nature and substance of online gun discourses as well as major driving actors behind it.

Authors

• Jiyoun Suk, U of Wisconsin-Madison

• Yini Zhang, U of Wisconsin Madison

• Josephine Lukito, U of Wisconsin-Madison

• Min-Hsin Su, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Jordan M. Foley, U of Wisconsin-Madison