Bridging semantic and social network analyses: the case of the hashtag #precisamosfalarsobreaborto (we need to talk about abortion) on Twitter |
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Authors: | Diógenes Lycarião Marcelo Alves dos Santos |
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Institution: | 1. Institute of Culture and Arts (ICA), Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza-Ceará, Brazil;2. Culture and Media Studies Department, Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Niterói-Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
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Abstract: | This paper presents an innovative method design that combines semantic with social network analysis in order to measure opinion leadership in social networking sites in a more accurate way. We used this method to assess the efficacy of the TPM magazine in disseminating its pro-decriminalization of abortion frames (contained in the cover story of its 148th issue) that were associated with the hashtag #precisamosfalarsobreaborto (a trending topic in November 2014). The data were collected from Twitter through the data-mining application NodeXL (N?=?1010). A content analysis of a random sample was carried out (N?=?376; margin of error?=?4%; confidence interval?=?95%; Krippendorff’s alpha?=?0.661). Using the software Gephi, we plotted the data on a socio-semantic graph, which indicates that (a) the border of the social network does not represent a semantic gap with the center and (b) despite the network being extremely like-minded, one of its hubs appears to be what we conceptualize as a hotspot of contestation. We discuss how future research may replicate and refine our methodology to handle population datasets and big data as well. |
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Keywords: | Social network analysis opinion leadership content analysis abortion discourse frame analysis Twitter |
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