Abstract
This study provides a descriptive look at the use of social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and inequality of political voices in the context of political interest organizations. It seeks to answer the question of whether the Internet and social media allow those who were previously outside the mainstream of power with respect to the broader democratic discourse to raise their voices and be heard. Overall, we find that social media does not diminish the concentration of political voices within the democratic discourse. Rather, the evidence suggests that political voice is more concentrated when the voice is measured by the size of the online network using social media than when measured by traditional variables such as the number of lobbyists. We also report that a very small number of large organizations that have very large-sized online networks as measured by Twitter followers are driving the high concentration of online political voices.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | dg.o 2015 - Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research |
Subtitle of host publication | Digital Government and Wicked Problems: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Inequality |
Editors | Jing Zhang, Yushim Kim |
Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
Pages | 210-216 |
Number of pages | 7 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781450336000 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 May 27 |
Event | 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, dg.o 2015 - Phoenix, United States Duration: 2015 May 27 → 2015 May 30 |
Publication series
Name | ACM International Conference Proceeding Series |
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Volume | 27-30-May-2015 |
Other
Other | 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, dg.o 2015 |
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Country/Territory | United States |
City | Phoenix |
Period | 15/5/27 → 15/5/30 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015 ACM.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Software
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
- Computer Networks and Communications