Automation, algorithms, and politics| bots and political influence: a sociotechnical investigation of social network capital
Automation, algorithms, and politics| bots and political influence: a sociotechnical investigation of social network capital
This study explains how bots interact with human users and influence conversational networks on Twitter. We analyze a high-stakes political environment, the UK general election of May 2015, asking human volunteers to tweet from purpose-made Twitter accounts—half of which had bots attached—during three events: the last Prime Minister’s Question Time before Parliament was dissolved (#PMQs), the first leadership interviews of the campaign (#BattleForNumber10), and the BBC Question Time broadcast of the same evening (#BBCQT). Based on previous work, our expectation was that our intervention would make a significant difference to the evolving network, but we found that the bots we used had very little effect on the conversation network at all. There are economic, social, and temporal factors that impact how a user of bots can influence political conversations. Future research needs to account for these forms of capital when assessing the impact of bots on political discussions.
4952-4971
Murthy, Dhiraj
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Powell, Alison B.
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Tinati, Ramine
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Anstead, Nick
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Carr, Les
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Halford, Susan
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Weal, Mark
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13 October 2016
Murthy, Dhiraj
2a9e32cb-7904-46f8-8f3b-98bd5cc493ed
Powell, Alison B.
21dce549-80b3-4718-acf0-eb3a34dd2e48
Tinati, Ramine
f74a0556-6a04-40c5-8bcf-6f5235dbf687
Anstead, Nick
e812a04d-fc4d-4c74-8b56-41dd5f5ccac2
Carr, Les
0572b10e-039d-46c6-bf05-57cce71d3936
Halford, Susan
0d0fe4d6-3c4b-4887-84bb-738cf3249d46
Weal, Mark
e8fd30a6-c060-41c5-b388-ca52c81032a4
Murthy, Dhiraj, Powell, Alison B., Tinati, Ramine, Anstead, Nick, Carr, Les, Halford, Susan and Weal, Mark
(2016)
Automation, algorithms, and politics| bots and political influence: a sociotechnical investigation of social network capital.
International Journal of Communication, 10, .
Abstract
This study explains how bots interact with human users and influence conversational networks on Twitter. We analyze a high-stakes political environment, the UK general election of May 2015, asking human volunteers to tweet from purpose-made Twitter accounts—half of which had bots attached—during three events: the last Prime Minister’s Question Time before Parliament was dissolved (#PMQs), the first leadership interviews of the campaign (#BattleForNumber10), and the BBC Question Time broadcast of the same evening (#BBCQT). Based on previous work, our expectation was that our intervention would make a significant difference to the evolving network, but we found that the bots we used had very little effect on the conversation network at all. There are economic, social, and temporal factors that impact how a user of bots can influence political conversations. Future research needs to account for these forms of capital when assessing the impact of bots on political discussions.
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Accepted/In Press date: 9 August 2016
Published date: 13 October 2016
Organisations:
Web & Internet Science, Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 401577
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/401577
ISSN: 1932-8036
PURE UUID: 72c6e60e-3eb3-46c9-88e9-52b3a7e4758f
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Date deposited: 18 Oct 2016 13:51
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 02:45
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Contributors
Author:
Dhiraj Murthy
Author:
Alison B. Powell
Author:
Nick Anstead
Author:
Susan Halford
Author:
Mark Weal
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