A big-data analysis of the communication patterns of parliament members with the public on Facebook: top-down, non-inclusive and non-egalitarian
| Date | 17 November 2022 |
| Pages | 1-15 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-07-2022-0324 |
| Published date | 17 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
| Author | Nili Steinfeld,Azi Lev-On |
A big-data analysis of the
communication patterns
of parliament members with
the public on Facebook: top-down,
non-inclusive and non-egalitarian
Nili Steinfeld and Azi Lev-On
School of Communication, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel
Abstract
Purpose –Socialmedia have becomethe main channelof direct communicationbetweenmembers of parliament
and constituents.The study analyzes thecontent in all IsraeliMPs’Facebookchannels throughoutan entire term
of parliamentand asks if the resultsare consistent with theequalization or the normalization hypotheses.
Design/methodology/approach –The study uses automatic analysis to produce a birds-eye-view of the
content uploaded to the Facebook pages of all Israeli MPs during a full term of parliament. All 106 MP pages
were automatically scraped. Some complementary information was added to each post in the dataset, such as
post length (number of words) and whether the page belongs to a member of the opposition or coalition.
The total of 441,974 posts was analyzed to compare engagement and publication rates between pages, coalition
vs opposition MPs, MPs vs users etc.
Findings –The findings demonstrate that the MP-Facebook sphere is non-egalitarian, in that it follows
skewed distributions by MPs in terms of post publication and engagement rates; non-inclusive, in that pages of
coalition members receive significantly muchmore engagement vis-a-vis pages of members of the oppositions;
and “top-down”, in that MP-authored posts receive dramatically more engagement then user-authored posts,
suggesting MPs have a near-monopoly on setting the agendas manifest in their pages, while users have
extremely limited agenda-setting capabilities in these pages.
Originality/value –Previous studies have looked at the character of the interactions between MPs and
constituents on the Internet and particularly on online social media. Yet, to the best of the authors’knowledge,
no study provides a birds-eye-view of the content in all MPs’Facebook channels throughout a full term of
parliament. Such an analysis provides a more comprehensive understanding of the character and dynamics of
conversations that take place in such arenas.
Keywords Political communication, e-parliament, Social media, Facebook, Big data analysis, Engagement,
Political discourse
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Over the past few decades, there has been a steady decline of public trust in political systems,
followed by a rise in public alienation from them (Manning, 2015;Putnam, 2000). Many
expected the Internet, especially online social media, to alleviate such “anti-political”
attitudes, by directly linking constituents and their representatives, circumventing
traditional intermediaries such as political parties and the mass media that are, by and
large, closed off to the general public. In light of its potential for interactivity, the Internet
could –at least theoretically –establish a direct, productive dialog between constituents and
their representatives. The inherently interactive character of online social media, emerging
Big-data
analysis of
communication
patters
1
The study was supported by the Institute for the Study of New Media, Politics and Society at Ariel
University. The authors thank Michael Barmatz, Yinon Sarusi, Nadav Gelbert, Elnatan Grinwold, Reut
Dodeles, Tehila Gelman and Salih Sawaed for their assistance in collecting and processing the data, and
Nomy Bitman and Candice Kotzen for their assistance with preparing the manuscript.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2050-3806.htm
Received 8 August 2022
Revised 6 October 2022
Accepted 29 October 2022
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 76 No. 1, 2024
pp. 1-15
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-07-2022-0324
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