Social media, sentiment and public opinions: Evidence from #Brexit and #USElection

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Tho Pham and Oleksandr Talavera ()

European Economic Review, 2021, vol. 136, issue C

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Brexit; U.S. Election; Information diffusion; Echo chambers; Political Bots; Twitter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D72 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Social Media, Sentiment and Public Opinions: Evidence from #Brexit and #USElection (2018)
Working Paper: Social media, sentiment and public opinions: Evidence from #Brexit and #USElection (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:136:y:2021:i:c:s0014292121001252

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2021.103772

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