Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Chinese National Conference on Social Media Processing

SMP 2017: Social Media Processing pp 308–318Cite as

Exploring the Country Co-occurrence Network in the Twittersphere at an International Economic Event

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

  • 1850 Accesses

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 774))

Abstract

This paper explores how international relations are represented on social media in the context of an international economic event, specifically the “Belt and Road Initiative” proposed by the government of mainland China. The present study focuses on the country co-occurrence network represented in the Twittersphere, such that a link is established between two countries if they appear in the same tweet. The study also investigates how the formation of such a network can be explained by geographical, political, and economic factors. An application programming interface (API) harvested all relevant public tweets (n = 26,515) in a one-month time span (2 June–28 June 2017). The names of the countries or regions were extracted to establish the network, with 52 nodes (countries or regions) and 86 edges. Social network analysis revealed that mainland China, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Greece, Kenya, and Iran were in the network’s important positions, as indicated by their high betweenness centrality. Exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) results suggested that West Asian countries engaging heavily in international polities, countries with lower levels of press freedom, and those receiving less direct investment from mainland China, were more likely to be tweeted together.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Gans, H.J.: Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time. Northwestern University Press, Evanston (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Golan, G.J.: Where in the world is Africa? Predicting coverage of Africa by US television networks. Int. Commun. Gazette 70(1), 41–57 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Zhu, J.H.: Between the prescriptive and descriptive roles: a comparison of international trade news in China and Taiwan. Asian J. Commun. 2(1), 31–50 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zhu, Q.: Citizen-driven international networks and globalization of social movements on Twitter. Soc. Sci. Comput. Rev. (2015). doi:10.1177/0894439315617263

  5. Wang, C.J., Wang, P.P., Zhu, J.J.: Discussing occupy wall street on Twitter: longitudinal network analysis of equality, emotion, and stability of public discussion. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Networking 16(9), 679–685 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Qin, J.: Hero on Twitter, traitor on news: how social media and legacy news frame Snowden. Int. J. Press/Polit. 20(2), 166–184 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Duncombe, C.: Twitter and transformative diplomacy: social media and Iran–US relations. Int. Aff. 93(3), 545–562 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Chang, T.K., Lau, T.Y., Hao, X.: From the United States with news and more: international flow, television coverage and the world system. Gazette (Leiden, Netherlands) 62(6), 505–522 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Chang, T.K., Shoemaker, P.J., Brendlinger, N.: Determinants of international news coverage in the US media. Commun. Res. 14(4), 396–414 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Wu, H.D.: Systemic determinants of international news coverage: a comparison of 38 countries. J. Commun. 50(2), 110–130 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Barnett, G.A., Xu, W.W., Chu, J., Jiang, K., Huh, C., Park, J.Y., Park, H.W.: Measuring international relations in social media conversations. Gov. Inf. Q. 34(1), 37–44 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Sluban, B., Grčar, M., Mozetič, I.: Temporal multi-layer network construction from major news events. In: Cherifi, H., Gonçalves, B., Menezes, R., Sinatra, R. (eds.) Complex Networks VII. SCI, vol. 644, pp. 29–41. Springer, Cham (2016). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-30569-1_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Popović, M., Štefančić, H., Sluban, B., Novak, P.K., Grčar, M., Mozetič, I., Puliga, M., Zlatić, V.: Extraction of temporal networks from term co-occurrences in online textual sources. PloS One 9(12), e99515 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Castells, M.: The new public sphere: global civil society, communication networks, and global governance. Ann. AAPSS 616, 77–93 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Holton, A.E., Baek, K., Coddington, M., Yaschur, C.: Seeking and sharing: motivations for linking on Twitter. Commun. Res. Rep. 31(1), 33–40 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Marchetti, R., Ceccobelli, D.: Twitter and television in a hybrid media system: the 2013 Italian election campaign. Journalism Pract. 10(5), 626–644 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Zhang, X.: Visualization, technologies, or the public? Exploring the articulation of data-driven journalism in the Twittersphere. Digit. Journalism (2017). doi:10.1080/21670811.2017.1340094

  18. McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., Cook, J.M.: Birds of a feather: homophily in social networks. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 27, 415–444 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Kandel, D.B.: Homophily, selection, and socialization in adolescent friendships. Am. J. Sociol. 84(2), 427–436 (1978). Homophily in interpersonal

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Eklund, L., Roman, S.: Do adolescent gamers make friends offline? Identity and friendship formation in school. Comput. Hum. Behav. 73, 284–289 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Maoz, Z.: Preferential attachment, homophily, and the structure of international networks, 1816–2003. Conflict Manag. Peace Sci. 29(3), 341–369 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Johnson, J.D., Tims, A.R.: Communication factors related to closer international ties. Hum. Commun. Res. 12(2), 259–273 (1985)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Sheafer, T., Shenhav, S.R., Takens, J., van Atteveldt, W.: Relative political and value proximity in mediated public diplomacy: the effect of state-level homophily on international frame building. Polit. Commun. 31(1), 149–167 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Barnett, G.A., Benefield, G.A.: Predicting international Facebook ties through cultural homophily and other factors. New Media Soc. 19(2), 217–239 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Hoff, P.D., Ward, M.D.: Modeling dependencies in international relations networks. Polit. Anal. 12(2), 160–175 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Louch, H.: Personal network integration: transitivity and homophily in strong-tie relations. Soc. Networks 22(1), 45–64 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Wasserman, S., Faust, K.: Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications, vol. 8. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1994)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  28. Maoz, Z., Terris, L.G., Kuperman, R.D., Talmud, I.: What is the enemy of my enemy? Causes and consequences of imbalanced international relations, 1816–2001. J. Polit. 69(1), 100–115 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Freedom House Index Report. https://freedomhouse.org

  30. Meyer, J.W., Boli, J., Thomas, G.M., Ramirez, F.O.: World society and the nation-state. Am. J. Sociol. 103(1), 144–181 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Givens, J.E., Jorgenson, A.K.: Individual environmental concern in the world polity: a multilevel analysis. Soc. Sci. Res. 42(2), 418–431 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. The China Global Investment Tracker. http://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/

  33. Goodreau, S.M., Handcock, M.S., Hunter, D.R., Butts, C.T., Morris, M.: A statnet tutorial. J. Stat. Softw. 24(9), 1 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The study was partly funded by the Start-up Grant for New Academics (no. RC-1617-1-A2) by Hong Kong Baptist University. The author would like to thank Professor David John Frank for generously sharing the data of international NGOs, together with Dr. Li Chen (the Department of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University), Dr. Lun Zhang (Beijing Normal University), Ms. Mengyi Zhang (Hong Kong Baptist University), and the three anonymous reviewers of the 2017 National Conference of Social Media Processing.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Journalism, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Baptist University Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR

    Xinzhi Zhang

Authors
  1. Xinzhi Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xinzhi Zhang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xueqi Cheng

  2. Beijing Jinri Toutiao Technology Co. Ltd , Beijing, China

    Weiying Ma

  3. Arizona State University , Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Huan Liu

  4. Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing, China

    Huawei Shen

  5. Renmin University of China , Beijing, China

    Shizheng Feng

  6. Microsoft Asia Research , Beijing, China

    Xing Xie

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this paper

Cite this paper

Zhang, X. (2017). Exploring the Country Co-occurrence Network in the Twittersphere at an International Economic Event. In: Cheng, X., Ma, W., Liu, H., Shen, H., Feng, S., Xie, X. (eds) Social Media Processing. SMP 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 774. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6805-8_25

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6805-8_25

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-6804-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-6805-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation