The Social Life of Social Networks: Facebook Linkage Patterns in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Scott P. Robertson, Ravi Vatrapu, Richard Medina

    Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapportKonferencebidrag i proceedingsForskningpeer review

    Abstract

    This paper examines the linkage patterns of people who posted links on the Facebook “walls” of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain over two years prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. Linkage patterns indicate the destinations to which participants in these social networking dialogues wished to send other participants. We show a strong integration of the Web 2.0 and new media technologies of social networking, online video, and blogs. Outside of video content, users tended to direct others to groups and applications within the Facebook
    community, but this homophilous behavior was more common for infrequent posters. Ten internet domains accounted for 90% of all links, and the top ten contained a mixture of news, candidate, and blog sites. We offer a discussion of the Facebook candidate walls as a public sphere for political discourse and introduce some design concepts for visualizing and navigating the walls.
    OriginalsprogEngelsk
    TitelProceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research : Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government
    RedaktørerSoon Ae Chun, Rodrigo Sandoval, Priscilla Regan
    ForlagDigital Government Society of North America
    Publikationsdato2009
    Sider6-15
    ISBN (Trykt)9781605585352
    StatusUdgivet - 2009
    Begivenhed10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks. dg.o 2009
    : Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data & Government
    - Canceled due to worldwide H1N1 influenza concerns, Puebla, Mexico
    Varighed: 17 maj 200920 maj 2009
    Konferencens nummer: 10

    Konference

    Konference10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks. dg.o 2009
    Nummer10
    LokationCanceled due to worldwide H1N1 influenza concerns
    Land/OmrådeMexico
    ByPuebla
    Periode17/05/200920/05/2009
    NavnACM International Conference Proceeding Series
    Vol/bind390

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