Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network

The study empirically analyzed activism participants’ roles drawn from the lens of social media affordance and identified the activism opinion leaders based on the framework of network connectivity, message diffusion, and semantic relevancy through the case of the #Marchforourlives Twitter network,...

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Main Author: Miyoung Chong
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-07-01
Series:Digital
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6470/4/3/33
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author Miyoung Chong
author_facet Miyoung Chong
author_sort Miyoung Chong
collection DOAJ
description The study empirically analyzed activism participants’ roles drawn from the lens of social media affordance and identified the activism opinion leaders based on the framework of network connectivity, message diffusion, and semantic relevancy through the case of the #Marchforourlives Twitter network, which has been rebranded as X. The study defines the #Marchforourlives Twitter network as a co-created activism network in collaboration with different degrees of contributors, such as the core advocates, the advocates, the supporters, and the amplifiers. The results showed that a very small number of tweets created by the core advocates played significant roles due to their extensive adoption by other participants, while many other original tweets were never mentioned or retweeted in the network. This study disclosed the extensive proportion of amplifiers as 95.13% among the examined participants. The study findings suggest that creating core agenda tweets with high amplifiability might be critical for successful hashtag activism to attract like-minded masses as networked protesters.
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spelling doaj-art-fff288f27bb24dc8990d9e3fe3f50cc22025-08-20T01:55:22ZengMDPI AGDigital2673-64702024-07-014366067510.3390/digital4030033Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives NetworkMiyoung Chong0Department of Journalism and Digital Communication, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, USAThe study empirically analyzed activism participants’ roles drawn from the lens of social media affordance and identified the activism opinion leaders based on the framework of network connectivity, message diffusion, and semantic relevancy through the case of the #Marchforourlives Twitter network, which has been rebranded as X. The study defines the #Marchforourlives Twitter network as a co-created activism network in collaboration with different degrees of contributors, such as the core advocates, the advocates, the supporters, and the amplifiers. The results showed that a very small number of tweets created by the core advocates played significant roles due to their extensive adoption by other participants, while many other original tweets were never mentioned or retweeted in the network. This study disclosed the extensive proportion of amplifiers as 95.13% among the examined participants. The study findings suggest that creating core agenda tweets with high amplifiability might be critical for successful hashtag activism to attract like-minded masses as networked protesters.https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6470/4/3/33Twitteraffordancehashtag activismopinion leadersocial network analysisLDA
spellingShingle Miyoung Chong
Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network
Digital
Twitter
affordance
hashtag activism
opinion leader
social network analysis
LDA
title Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network
title_full Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network
title_fullStr Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network
title_full_unstemmed Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network
title_short Twitter and the Affordance: A Case Study of Participatory Roles in the #Marchforourlives Network
title_sort twitter and the affordance a case study of participatory roles in the marchforourlives network
topic Twitter
affordance
hashtag activism
opinion leader
social network analysis
LDA
url https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6470/4/3/33
work_keys_str_mv AT miyoungchong twitterandtheaffordanceacasestudyofparticipatoryrolesinthemarchforourlivesnetwork