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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

8. Patterns of Emotional Tweets: The Case of Brexit After the Referendum Results

Authors : Catherine Bouko, David Garcia

Published in: Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

With the public sphere conceptualized as consisting of rational, deliberate dialogue, affective responses are often excluded from any considerations of social media’s role in democracy. This chapter aims to extend our understanding of the role played by Twitter in contemporary democracy by considering it as a public space that allows emotion-laden expression to promote democratic progress. Using a quantitative content analysis combined with a text-based analysis of tweets centered on the outcome of the Brexit referendum, this chapter shows how Twitter serves as a public space that does not allow for true dialogue, with responses to the referendum often combining affect, appreciation, and judgment, thereby reflecting and augmenting political polarization.

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previous chapter Covert Hate Speech: White Nationalists and Dog Whistle Communication on Twitter

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This study was based on a public archival dataset of tweets available in the Internet Archive to all researchers without the need for any special access or account. All tweets had been posted publicly by Twitter users and included highly popular trending topic terms and hashtags to be visible in the public discussion. No private or personal data was analyzed at any point.

All the quoted tweets were openly accessible and public. Proper attribution is given in brackets after each tweet.

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Title: Patterns of Emotional Tweets: The Case of Brexit After the Referendum Results
Authors: Catherine Bouko
David Garcia
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41420-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-41421-4

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41421-4_8

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