The Topology of a Discussion: The #Occupy Case.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

We analyse a large sample of the Twitter activity that developed around the social movement 'Occupy Wall Street', to study the complex interactions between the human communication activity and the semantic content of a debate.

Methods

We use a network approach based on the analysis of the bipartite graph @Users-#Hashtags and of its projections: the 'semantic network', whose nodes are hashtags, and the 'users interest network', whose nodes are users. In the first instance, we find out that discussion topics (#hashtags) present a high structural heterogeneity, with a relevant role played by the semantic hubs that are responsible to guarantee the continuity of the debate. In the users' case, the self-organisation process of users' activity, leads to the emergence o

SUBMITTER: Gargiulo F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4564107 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature