Slides as presented at MPSA 2012. Paper abstract: This paper uses data from 1,042 tweets posted by or mentioning Chicago Aldermen or Mayor Rahm Emanuel to examine how Chicago politicians use social media. Twitter provides a public communication medium in which constituents and their representatives can have two-way conversations that others can witness and record, and we used qualitative and social network methods to examine conversations between Chicagoans and representatives in city government. We coded the contents of each tweet over the two-week time period (e.g., official business, fundraising) and created representations of the social networks created by the users’ following behaviors. These networks indicate who receives politicians’ tweets and help identify the audiences for political messaging in social media. Our analysis indicates that Chicago’s Aldermen and Mayor use Twitter for social conversations more often than political ones, and that only a small number of Aldermen dominate the resulting conversation networks.

1. CHICAGO POLITICIANS
ON TWITTER
Libby Hemphill
Matthew A. Shapiro
Jahna Otterbacher
Charise Angderson
Illinois Institute of Technology
info@casmlab.org
http://www.casmlab.org/projects/publicofficials/

2. Project team
• Libby Hemphill
• Matt Shapiro
• Jahna Otterbacher
• Charise Angderson
• Drexler James
• W. David Work
Illinois Institute of Technology
info@casmlab.org
http://www.casmlab.org/projects/publicofficials/
4/12/12 Hemphill, Shapiro, and Otterbacher

3. Overview
• Chicago overview
• Twitter overview
• Network analysis
• Content analysis
• Next steps
4/12/12 Hemphill, Shapiro, and Otterbacher

4. CHICAGO
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5. 4/12/12 Hemphill, Shapiro, and Otterbacher

6. April 12, 2012 Shapiro, Hemphill, and Otterbacher

7. TWITTER
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8. Shapiro, Hemphill, and Otterbacher
twitter home

9. Twitter conventions
• @username and .@username
• #hashtag
• RT and MT
April 12, 2012 Shapiro, Hemphill, and Otterbacher

10. NETWORKS
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11. Characteristics of the Aldermen Network
Nodes (Everyone) 14,828
Egos (Aldermen) 27
Alters (Everyone else) 14,821
Ratio of Egos to Alters 548.93
Edges (Total) 40,199
Edges (Reciprocal) 14,993
Edges (One-way) 25,206
Density 0.00016
Average Distance 2.87
Average Clustering Coefficient 0.226
(random = 0.00014)
Diameter 4
(random = 27)
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12. SegregatedAudiences

13. Core-periphery?

14. CONTENT
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15. Coding for action
Code Definition
Personal
message
non-business oriented messages or notes, such
as holiday greetings or other personal sentiments
Information a message that provides a fact, opinion, link to an
article, position on an issue, or resource
Requesting
action
requests that constituents take some action like
signing a petition or voting
Fundraising requests donations or contributions
Official business official business in City Council, including voting,
committee and Council meetings
Location or
Activity
non-official activities including trips, meetings with
constituents, lobbyists, or activities in the home
ward
April 12, 2012 Shapiro, Hemphill, and Otterbacher

16. Mechanical Turk
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17. Inter-coder reliability
Code % agreement Fleiss’ κ
Information 67 0.34
Location or Activity 77 0.30
Personal message 70 0.26
Requesting action 99 0.22
Fundraising 90 0.14
Official business 90 0.14
Self promotion 94 0.05
Direct communication* 64 0.29
4/12/12 Hemphill, Shapiro, and Otterbacher

18. Frequency of content
Code N % of
Tweets
Information 1568 50%
Location or Activity 694 22%
Personal message 824 26%
Requesting action 201 6%
Fundraising 25 1%
Official business 197 6%
Self promotion 94 3%
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19. Hashtag Frequencies
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0
5
10
15
20
25

20. April 12, 2012 Shapiro, Hemphill, and Otterbacher
Hashtags x Aldermen

21. In and Out Groups
Core Periphery
1 2
1 0.589 0.557
2 0.056 0.052
Factions
1 2
1 0.061 0.021
2 0.189 0.568
4/12/12 Hemphill, Shapiro, and Otterbacher

22. Next Steps
• Ward and Alderman characteristics*
• Redrawn ward map
• NATO
• Citizen side
4/12/12 Hemphill, Shapiro, and Otterbacher

23. Contact us
• Libby Hemphill (libby.hemphill@iit.edu)
• Matt Shapiro (mshapir2@iit.edu)
• Jahna Otterbacher (jotterba@iit.edu)
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• info@casmlab.org
• http://www.casmlab.org/projects/publicofficials/
April 12, 2012 Shapiro, Hemphill, and Otterbacher