Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election

Abstract This paper proposes an analysis of political homophily among Twitter users during the 2016 American Presidential Election. We collected 4.9 million tweets of 18,450 users and their contact network from August 2016 to November 2016. We defined six user classes regarding their sentiment towar...

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Main Authors: Josemar A. Caetano, Hélder S. Lima, Mateus F. Santos, Humberto T. Marques-Neto
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2018-09-01
Series:Journal of Internet Services and Applications
Subjects:
Online Access:http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13174-018-0089-0
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spelling doaj-32d30388799e4b9d8003925270a77e2c2020-11-25T01:02:14ZengSpringerOpenJournal of Internet Services and Applications1867-48281869-02382018-09-019111510.1186/s13174-018-0089-0Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential electionJosemar A. Caetano0Hélder S. Lima1Mateus F. Santos2Humberto T. Marques-Neto3Department of Computer Science, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas)Department of Computer Science, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas)Department of Computer Science, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas)Department of Computer Science, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas)Abstract This paper proposes an analysis of political homophily among Twitter users during the 2016 American Presidential Election. We collected 4.9 million tweets of 18,450 users and their contact network from August 2016 to November 2016. We defined six user classes regarding their sentiment towards Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: whatever, Trump supporter, Hillary supporter, positive, neutral, and negative. Next, we analyzed their political homophily in three scenarios. Firstly, we analyzed the Twitter follow, mention and retweet connections either unidirectional and reciprocal. In the second scenario, we analyzed multiplex connections, and in the third one, we analyzed friendships with similar speeches. Our results showed that negative users, users supporting Trump, and users supporting Hillary had homophily in all analyzed scenarios. We also found out that the homophily level increase when there are reciprocal connections, similar speeches, or multiplex connections.http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13174-018-0089-0InternetOnline social networksSentiment analysisHomophily
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Josemar A. Caetano
Hélder S. Lima
Mateus F. Santos
Humberto T. Marques-Neto
spellingShingle Josemar A. Caetano
Hélder S. Lima
Mateus F. Santos
Humberto T. Marques-Neto
Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election
Journal of Internet Services and Applications
Internet
Online social networks
Sentiment analysis
Homophily
author_facet Josemar A. Caetano
Hélder S. Lima
Mateus F. Santos
Humberto T. Marques-Neto
author_sort Josemar A. Caetano
title Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election
title_short Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election
title_full Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election
title_fullStr Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election
title_full_unstemmed Using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 American presidential election
title_sort using sentiment analysis to define twitter political users’ classes and their homophily during the 2016 american presidential election
publisher SpringerOpen
series Journal of Internet Services and Applications
issn 1867-4828
1869-0238
publishDate 2018-09-01
description Abstract This paper proposes an analysis of political homophily among Twitter users during the 2016 American Presidential Election. We collected 4.9 million tweets of 18,450 users and their contact network from August 2016 to November 2016. We defined six user classes regarding their sentiment towards Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: whatever, Trump supporter, Hillary supporter, positive, neutral, and negative. Next, we analyzed their political homophily in three scenarios. Firstly, we analyzed the Twitter follow, mention and retweet connections either unidirectional and reciprocal. In the second scenario, we analyzed multiplex connections, and in the third one, we analyzed friendships with similar speeches. Our results showed that negative users, users supporting Trump, and users supporting Hillary had homophily in all analyzed scenarios. We also found out that the homophily level increase when there are reciprocal connections, similar speeches, or multiplex connections.
topic Internet
Online social networks
Sentiment analysis
Homophily
url http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13174-018-0089-0
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