TY - JOUR
T1 - Social media, sentiment and public opinions
T2 - evidence from #Brexit and #USElection
AU - Gorodnichenko, Yuriy
AU - Pham, Tho
AU - Talavera, Oleksandr
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - This paper studies information diffusion in social media and the potential role of bots in influencing public opinions. Using Twitter data on the 2016 E.U. Referendum (“Brexit”) and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, we find that diffusion of information on Twitter is largely complete within 1–2 h. Stronger diffusion between agents with similar beliefs is consistent with the “echo chambers” view of social media. Our results are consistent the notion that bots could have a tangible effect on the tweeting activity of humans and that the degree of bots’ influence depends on whether bots provide information consistent with humans’ priors. Overall, our results suggest that the aggressive use of Twitter bots, coupled with the fragmentation of social media and the role of sentiment, could enhance political polarization.
AB - This paper studies information diffusion in social media and the potential role of bots in influencing public opinions. Using Twitter data on the 2016 E.U. Referendum (“Brexit”) and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, we find that diffusion of information on Twitter is largely complete within 1–2 h. Stronger diffusion between agents with similar beliefs is consistent with the “echo chambers” view of social media. Our results are consistent the notion that bots could have a tangible effect on the tweeting activity of humans and that the degree of bots’ influence depends on whether bots provide information consistent with humans’ priors. Overall, our results suggest that the aggressive use of Twitter bots, coupled with the fragmentation of social media and the role of sentiment, could enhance political polarization.
KW - Brexit
KW - Echo chambers
KW - Information diffusion
KW - Political Bots
KW - Twitter
KW - U.S. Election
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107452066&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2021.103772
DO - 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2021.103772
M3 - Article
SN - 0014-2921
VL - 136
JO - European Economic Review
JF - European Economic Review
M1 - 103772
ER -