DOI

With the emergence of discussion platforms like Twitter, the hopes rose that computer-mediated public sphere would become more even in access to discussion than mass-mediatized public sphere of the late 20th century. Scholars have argued that it will eventually form an 'opinion crossroads' where conflicts would be discussed by all the parties involved. But today, existing research provides mixed evidence on whether ordinary users, rather than mainstream media and institutional actors, can become influencers in discussions on current issues, e.g. relations between host and migrant communities. We focus on the Twitter discussion about an inter-ethnic conflict in Moscow's Biryuliovo district in 2013 and aim at defining who were its real influencers by reconstructing the discussion's web graph, as well as analyzing and juxtaposing its metrics to figures indicating user activity. Our results show that, despite hyperactivity of media accounts, they were largely absent as deliberative influencers, but the place of influencers was occupied by politicized (nationalist and liberal) accounts, rather by eyewitness reporters or public figures.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEGOSE 2016 - International Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society
Subtitle of host publicationChallenges in Eurasia, Proceedings
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages212-222
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781450348591
DOIs
StatePublished - 22 Nov 2016
Event3rd International Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia, EGOSE 2016 - St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
Duration: 21 Nov 201622 Nov 2016

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series
Volume22-23-November-2016

Conference

Conference3rd International Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia, EGOSE 2016
Country/TerritoryRussian Federation
CitySt. Petersburg
Period21/11/1622/11/16

    Research areas

  • Influencer, Inter-ethnic conflict, Twitter, Web graph, Webcrawling

    Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Networks and Communications

ID: 7648340