Influential spreaders in the political Twitter sphere of the 2013 Malaysian general election
| Pages | 54-68 |
| Published date | 04 February 2019 |
| Date | 04 February 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-09-2017-0409 |
| Author | Hong-liang Sun,Eugene Ch’ng,Simon See |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Influential spreaders in the
political Twitter sphere of the
2013 Malaysian general election
Hong-liang Sun
School of Information and Engineering,
Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, Nanjing, China and
International Doctoral Innovation Centre,
University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China
Eugene Ch’ng
NVIDIA Technology Centre,
University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China, and
Simon See
NVIDIA Technology Centre, Singapore
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate political influential spreaders in Twitter at the juncture
before and after the Malaysian General Election in 2013 (MGE2013) for the purpose of understanding if the
political sphere within Twitter reflects the intentions, popularity and influence of political figures in the year
in which Malaysia has its first “social media election.”
Design/methodology/approach –A Big Data approach was used for acquiring a series of longitudinal
data sets during the election period. The work differs from existing methods focusing on the general statistics
of the number of followers, supporters, sentiment analysis, etc. A retweeting network has been extracted from
tweets and retweets and has been mapped to a novel information flow and propagation network we
developed. The authors conducted quantitative studies using k-shell decomposition, which enables the
construction of a quantitative Twitter political propagation sphere where members posited at the core areas
are more influential than those in the outer circles and periphery.
Findings –The authors conducted a comparative study of the influential members of Twitter political
propagation sphere on the election day and the day after. The authors found that representatives of political
parties which are located at the center of the propagation network are winners of the presidential election.
This may indicate that influential power within Twitter is positively related to the final election results, at
least in MGE2013. Furthermore, a number of non-politicians located at the center of the propagation network
also significantly influenced the election.
Research limitations/implications –This research is based on a large electoral campaign in a specific
election period, and within a predefined nation. While the result is significant and meaningful, more case
studies are needed for generalized application for identifying potential winning candidates in future social-
media fueled political elections.
Practical implications –The authors presente d a simple yet effective mo del for identifying
influential spreade rs in the Twitter political sphere. The applic ation of the authors’approach yielded the
conclusion that online “coreness”score has signifi cant influence to the final o ffline electoral result s.
This presents great oppo rtunities for applyi ng the novel methodolog y in the upcoming Malaysia n
General Election in 2018. The discovery presented here can be used for understanding how
different players of political parties en gage themselves in the e lection game in Twitt er. The approach
can also be adopted as a fac tor of influence for offline electora l activities. The conception of a quant itative
approach in electora l results greatly influenced by social me dia means that comparative studies cou ld be
made in future elections.
Originality/value –Existing works related to general elections of various nations have either bypassed or
ignored the subtle links between online and offline influential propagations. The modeling of influence from
social media using a longitudinal and multilayered approach is also rarely studied. This simple yet effective
method provides a new perspective of practice for understanding how different players behave and mutually
shape each other over time in the election game.
Keywords Social media, Twitter
Paper type Research paper
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 119 No. 1, 2019
pp. 54-68
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-09-2017-0409
Received 15 September 2017
Revised 4 April 2018
5June2018
Accepted 20 June 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
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IMDS
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