Semantic Networks of Election Fraud: Comparing the Twitter Discourses of the U.S. and Korean Presidential Elections

Jongmyung Lee, Chung Joo Chung and Daesik Kim ()
Additional contact information
Jongmyung Lee: Department of Media & Communication, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Republic of Korea
Chung Joo Chung: Department of Media & Communication, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea
Daesik Kim: Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: Traditional news outlets, such as newspapers and television, are no longer major sources of news. These media channels have been replaced by social platforms, which have increased in value as information distributors. This change in communication is an underlying reason for the election fraud controversies that occurred in the United States and South Korea, which hold high standards of democracy, during similar periods. This study investigates a model for sharing political disputes over social networks, especially Twitter, and illustrates the influence of political polarization. This study examines Twitter content around the presidential elections in the United States and South Korea in 2020 and 2022, respectively. It applies semantic network analysis and structural topic modeling to describe and compare the dynamics of online discourse on the issue of election fraud. The results show that online spaces such as Twitter serve as public spheres for discussion among active political participants. Social networks are key settings for forming and spreading election fraud controversies in the United States and South Korea, with differences in content. In addition, the study applies large-volume text data and new analytical methods such as the structural topic model to examine the in-depth relationships among political issues in cyberspace.

Keywords: election fraud; political communication; presidential elections; comparative analysis; Twitter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/2/94/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/2/94/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:2:p:94-:d:1331763

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().