Studying political microblogging: Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign

TLDR

Twitter, launched in 2006, has become a widely used microblogging platform increasingly employed for various purposes, including online political campaigning and civic deliberation. The study aims to analyze Twitter activity during the 2010 Swedish election, identify distinct user types, and propose a novel methodological framework for microblogging research. The authors collect and analyze Twitter data from the 2010 Swedish election, applying their proposed framework to examine user behavior. The study demonstrates that the proposed framework successfully identifies distinct user types and provides actionable insights into civic microblogging practices.

Abstract

Among the many so-called microblogging services that allow their users to describe their current status in short posts, Twitter is probably among the most popular and well known. Since its launch in 2006, Twitter use has evolved and is increasingly used in a variety of contexts. This article utilizes emerging online tools and presents a rationale for data collection and analysis of Twitter users. The suggested approach is exemplified with a case study: Twitter use during the 2010 Swedish election. Although many of the initial hopes for e-democracy appear to have gone largely unfulfilled, the successful employment of the internet during the 2008 US presidential campaign has again raised voices claiming that the internet, and particularly social media applications like Twitter, provides interesting opportunities for online campaigning and deliberation. Besides providing an overarching analysis of how Twitter use was fashioned during the 2010 Swedish election campaign, this study identifies different user types based on how high-end users utilized the Twitter service. By suggesting a novel approach to the study of microblogging and by identifying user types, this study contributes to the burgeoning field of microblog research and gives specific insights into the practice of civic microblogging.