A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES

Abanoz, Enes

A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES

Enes ABANOZ (Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi, İletişim Fakültesi, Samsun, Türkiye)

Akdeniz İletişim

14 2

Yıl: 2020 Cilt: 0 Sayı: 33 Sayfa Aralığı: 73 - 90 Metin Dili: İngilizce İndeks Tarihi: 25-11-2020

A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES

Öz:

Social media provides a large-scale data that have substantial prospective to definecollective actions such as social trends, political participation and complex phenomenain real world. When people use these channels, they leave a huge amount of digitaltrace that can be easily reached by researchers. This digital trace bestows us a uniquepossibility to observe and reveal collective actions at unpreceded measures. In thisresearch, we have aimed to test if the daily Twitter activities (tweet, retweet, mention)can serve as a significant indicator regarding Turkish election results, an argumentalready engaged in previous studies. To test it, we have applied a method that wasdeveloped by Eom et al. (2015) based on daily tweet volume to predict the ranks ofvariables. We have used the fluctuations of daily tweet volumes in order to find theoptimal time frame for predicted ranking of parties and candidates. We have concludedthat some of our results overlap with previous studies. The correlation between thedaily attention volume on acquired in this study and the election results –even thoughit does not directly impact the election results– shows Turkish Twitter data can be usedas a proxy tool.

Anahtar Kelime:

TÜRKİYE GENEL SEÇİM SONUÇLARININ BİR GÖSTERGESİ OLARAK HASHTAG VE MENTION EYLEMLERİNİN TWİTTER TABANLI ANALİZİ

Öz:

Sosyal medya; gerçek dünyadaki sosyal eğilimleri, siyasi katılım ve gösteriler gibi kolektif eylemleri tanımlamak için önemli ve geniş çaplı bir veri sunmaktadır. İnsanlar bu kanalları kullandıklarında, araştırmacılar tarafından kolayca ulaşılabilecek büyük miktarda dijital iz bırakmaktadırlar. Bu dijital iz, kolektif eylemleri gözlemleme ve ortaya çıkarma konusunda araştırmacılara eşsiz bir imkân sunmaktadır. Bu araştırma, günlük Twitter aktivitelerinin (tweet, retweet, mention), birçok çalışmada ele alındığı gibi, Türkiye seçim sonuçlarına ilişkin önemli bir gösterge olup olmadığını test etmeyi amaçlamıştır. Bunu test etmek için, Eom ve arkadaşları (2015) tarafından günlük tweet hacmine dayalı olarak değişkenlerin sırasını tahmin etmek için geliştirilen bir yöntem seçilerek uygulanmıştır. Partilerin ve adayların tahmini sıralamasında en uygun zaman aralığını bulmak için günlük tweet hacimlerindeki dalgalanmalar kullanılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda, elde edilen sonuçlardan bazılarının önceki çalışmalarla örtüştüğü görülmüştür. Bu çalışma sonucunda elde edilen günlük ilgi miktarı ile seçim sonuçları arasındaki korelasyon –seçim sonuçlarını doğrudan etkilemese de– Türkiye’de Twitter verilerinin bir gösterge olarak kullanılabileceğini göstermiştir.

Anahtar Kelime:

Belge Türü: Makale Makale Türü: Araştırma Makalesi Erişim Türü: Erişime Açık

Aral, S. (2012). Social science: Poked to vote. Nature, 489(7415), 212–214. https://doi.org/10.1038/489212a
Barberá, P., & Rivero, G. (2015). Understanding the Political Representativeness of Twitter Users. Social Science Computer Review, 33(6), 712–729. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439314558836
Baviera, T., Sampietro, A., & García-Ull, F. J. (2019). Political conversations on Twitter in a disruptive scenario: The role of “party evangelists” during the 2015 Spanish general elections. The Communication Review, 22(2), 117–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2019.1599642
Bond, R. M., Fariss, C. J., Jones, J. J., Kramer, A. D. I., Marlow, C., Settle, J. E., & Fowler, J. H. (2012). A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization. Nature, 489, 295–298. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11421
Borondo, J., Morales, A. J., Losada, J. C., & Benito, R. M. (2012). Characterizing and modeling an electoral campaign in the context of Twitter: 2011 Spanish presidential election as a case study. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 22, 023138. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4729139
Bossetta, M. (2018). The Digital Architectures of Social Media: Comparing Political Campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. Election. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 95(2), 471–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018763307
Brundidge, J. (2010). Encountering “Difference” in the Contemporary Public Sphere: The Contribution of the Internet to the Heterogeneity of Political Discussion Networks. Journal of Communication, 60(4), 680–700. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01509.x
Budak, C., & Watts, D. (2015). Dissecting the spirit of Gezi: Influence vs. selection in the Occupy Gezi Movement. Sociological Science, 2, 370–397. https://doi.org/10.15195/v2.a18
Caetano, J. A., Lima, H. S., Santos, M. F., & Marques-Neto, H. T. (2018). Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 9(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13174-018-0089-0
Caldarelli, G., Chessa, A., Pammolli, F., Pompa, G., Puliga, M., Riccaboni, M., & Riotta, G. (2014). A multi-level geographical study of Italian political elections from Twitter data. PLoS ONE, 9, e95809. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095809
DiGrazia, J., McKelvey, K., Bollen, J., & Rojas, F. (2013). More Tweets, more votes: Social media as a quantitative indicator of political behavior. PLoS ONE, 8, e79449. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079449
Eom, Y.-H., Puliga, M., Smailović, J., Mozetič, I., & Caldarelli, G. (2015). Twitter-based analysis of the dynamics of collective attention to political parties. PLOS ONE, 10, e0131184. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131184
Ferguson, W. D. (2013). Collective Action and Exchange: A game-theoretic Approach to Contemporary Political Economy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Franco-Riquelme, J. N., Bello-Garcia, A., & Ordieres-Mere, J. (2019). Indicator Proposal for Measuring Regional Political Support for the Electoral Process on Twitter: The Case of Spain’s 2015 and 2016 General Elections. IEEE Access, 7, 62545–62560. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2917398
Gaumont, N., Panahi, M., & Chavalarias, D. (2018). Reconstruction of the socio-semantic dynamics of political activist Twitter networks—Method and application to the 2017 French presidential election. PLOS ONE, 13(9), e0201879. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201879
Gayo-Avello, D. (2013). A meta-analysis of state-of-the-art electoral prediction from Twitter data. Social Science Computer Review, 31(6), 649–679. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439313493979
Grimaldi, D. (2019). Can we analyse political discourse using Twitter? Evidence from Spanish 2019 presidential election. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 9(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-019-0594-6
Kwon, K. H., Stefanone, M. A., & Barnett, G. A. (2014). Social network influence on online behavioral choices exploring group formation on social network sites. American Behavioral Scientist, 58, 1345–1360.
Lee, J. K., Choi, J., Kim, C., & Kim, Y. (2014). Social media, network heterogeneity, and opinion polarization. Journal of Communication, 64, 702–722. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12077
McGregor, S. C., Mourão, R. R., & Molyneux, L. (2017). Twitter as a tool for and object of political and electoral activity: Considering electoral context and variance among actors. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 14(2), 154–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2017.1308289
Metcalfe, G., Speetjens, M. F. M., Lester, D. R., & Clercx, H. J. H. (2012). Beyond Passive: Chaotic Transport in Stirred Fluids. In E. Van der Giessen & H. Aref (Eds.), Advances in Applied Mechanics (Vol. 45, pp. 109–188). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-380876-9.00004-5
Minto, R. (2013, October 4). Twitter’s EM uphill battle. Retrieved October 5, 2015, from Financial Times website: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/10/04/twitter-who-are-the-77/
PEW. (2012, December 12). Social networking popular across globe. Retrieved October 5, 2015, from Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project website: http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/12/12/social-networking-popular-across-globe/
Romero, D. M., Galuba, W., Asur, S., & Huberman, B. A. (2011). Influence and passivity in social media. 20th International Conference Companion on World Wide Web, 113–114. https://doi.org/10.1145/1963192.1963250
Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Ogan, C. L., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2014). Evolution of online user behavior during a social upheaval. 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1145/2615569.2615699

APA	Abanoz E (2020). A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. , 73 - 90.
Chicago	Abanoz Enes A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. (2020): 73 - 90.
MLA	Abanoz Enes A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. , 2020, ss.73 - 90.
AMA	Abanoz E A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. . 2020; 73 - 90.
Vancouver	Abanoz E A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. . 2020; 73 - 90.
IEEE	Abanoz E "A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES." , ss.73 - 90, 2020.
ISNAD	Abanoz, Enes. "A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES". (2020), 73-90.

APA	Abanoz E (2020). A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. Akdeniz İletişim, 0(33), 73 - 90.
Chicago	Abanoz Enes A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. Akdeniz İletişim 0, no.33 (2020): 73 - 90.
MLA	Abanoz Enes A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. Akdeniz İletişim, vol.0, no.33, 2020, ss.73 - 90.
AMA	Abanoz E A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. Akdeniz İletişim. 2020; 0(33): 73 - 90.
Vancouver	Abanoz E A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES. Akdeniz İletişim. 2020; 0(33): 73 - 90.
IEEE	Abanoz E "A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES." Akdeniz İletişim, 0, ss.73 - 90, 2020.
ISNAD	Abanoz, Enes. "A TWITTER-BASED ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG AND MENTION ACTIONS AS AN INDICATOR OF TURKISH GENERAL ELECTIONS’ OUTCOMES". Akdeniz İletişim 33 (2020), 73-90.