Data di Pubblicazione:
2019
Citazione:
Cheap Talk ? Second screening and the irrelevance of TV political debates / A. Ceron, S. Splendore. - In: JOURNALISM. - ISSN 1464-8849. - (2019 May 09). [Epub ahead of print] [10.1177/1464884919845443]
Abstract:
This article analyzes 3 months of online debate during the electoral campaign for the
2016 Italian constitutional referendum. Through supervised sentiment analysis, we
assess the extent of support for the referendum within the general public of Twitter
users (Twittersphere) by analyzing the voting intentions expressed online in 2,369,333
tweets. Similarly, we exploit the practice of social TV and investigate the support for
the referendum expressed by the 160,465 tweets posted by second screeners, that
is, the subsample of Twitter users who watched and actively commented on nine
political talk shows during the campaign. We compare the mentions and the attitudes
of the Twittersphere and the second screeners by means of a lead–lag analysis to
test whether the second screeners can act as influencers and trendsetters able to
shape or anticipate attention and opinions toward an issue within larger audiences.
The results reveal an inverse relationship between the Twittersphere and the second
screeners whereby the reactions of the latter diverge from those of the general
Twitter public. This finding has implications for the literature on echo chambers and
the polarization of social media.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
electoral campaign; Italy; referendum; sentiment analysis; social TV; TV talk show;
Elenco autori:
A. Ceron, S. Splendore
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