Community characteristics of Twitter followers in EU-countries governmental accounts
by Konstantinos Antoniadis; Kostas Zafiropoulos; Vasiliki Vrana
International Journal of Electronic Governance (IJEG), Vol. 8, No. 3, 2016

Abstract: The paper explores the mentions/replies networks of 56 ministries Twitter accounts in 17 EU countries to find out whether followers of governmental accounts form communities. By recording clustering coefficient, degree-skewness, average shortest path and assortativity, this research explores whether the properties of small-worlds, scale-free networks and homophily are present. These indices are then associated with Twitter performance of the accounts in order to distinguish which accounts present community properties to a higher degree. The m/r networks generally are not small-worlds. While the average shortest paths are small, skewness is moderate and clustering coefficients are zero. Assortativity is negative; less active followers mention/reply to more active followers, who serve as authorities in this context. Accounts of high Twitter performance also have higher skewness. However in general, the specific Twitter accounts almost uniformly are not associated with the formation of communities of followers, failing in this way to meet a desirable property of e-government adoption, consultation and discussion.

Online publication date: Fri, 06-Jan-2017

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Electronic Governance (IJEG):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com