A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter
Autor(a) principal: | |
---|---|
Data de Publicação: | 2022 |
Outros Autores: | |
Tipo de documento: | Artigo |
Idioma: | eng |
Título da fonte: | Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
Texto Completo: | https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4686 |
Resumo: | Given the politicization of European integration, effective public communication by the European Union (EU) has gained importance. Especially for rather detached supranational executives, social media platforms offer unique opportunities to communicate to and engage with European citizens. Yet, do supranational actors exploit this potential? This article provides a bird’s eye view by quantitatively describing almost one million tweets from 113 supranational EU accounts in the 2009–2021 period, focusing especially on the comprehensibility and publicity of supranational messages. We benchmark these characteristics against large samples of tweets from national executives, other regional organizations, and random Twitter users. We show that the volume of supranational Twitter has been increasing, that it relies strongly on the multimedia features of the platform, and outperforms communication from and engagement with other political executives on many dimensions. However, we also find a highly technocratic language in supranational messages, skewed user engagement metrics, and high levels of variation across institutional and individual actors and their messages. We discuss these findings in light of the legitimacy and public accountability challenges that supranational EU actors face and derive recommendations for future research on supranational social media messages. |
id |
RCAP_fce766f6499b3220f589ca9062085aae |
---|---|
oai_identifier_str |
oai:ojs.cogitatiopress.com:article/4686 |
network_acronym_str |
RCAP |
network_name_str |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
repository_id_str |
7160 |
spelling |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on TwitterEuropean Union; political communication; politicization; social media; text analysisGiven the politicization of European integration, effective public communication by the European Union (EU) has gained importance. Especially for rather detached supranational executives, social media platforms offer unique opportunities to communicate to and engage with European citizens. Yet, do supranational actors exploit this potential? This article provides a bird’s eye view by quantitatively describing almost one million tweets from 113 supranational EU accounts in the 2009–2021 period, focusing especially on the comprehensibility and publicity of supranational messages. We benchmark these characteristics against large samples of tweets from national executives, other regional organizations, and random Twitter users. We show that the volume of supranational Twitter has been increasing, that it relies strongly on the multimedia features of the platform, and outperforms communication from and engagement with other political executives on many dimensions. However, we also find a highly technocratic language in supranational messages, skewed user engagement metrics, and high levels of variation across institutional and individual actors and their messages. We discuss these findings in light of the legitimacy and public accountability challenges that supranational EU actors face and derive recommendations for future research on supranational social media messages.Cogitatio2022-02-17info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttps://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4686oai:ojs.cogitatiopress.com:article/4686Politics and Governance; Vol 10, No 1 (2022): Analyzing Citizen Engagement with European Politics Through Social Media; 133-1452183-2463reponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãoinstacron:RCAAPenghttps://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4686https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4686https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4686/4686https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/downloadSuppFile/4686/2273Copyright (c) 2022 Sina Özdemir, Christian Rauhhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessÖzdemir, SinaRauh, Christian2022-12-22T15:15:29Zoai:ojs.cogitatiopress.com:article/4686Portal AgregadorONGhttps://www.rcaap.pt/oai/openaireopendoar:71602024-03-19T16:22:08.884166Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãofalse |
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
title |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
spellingShingle |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter Özdemir, Sina European Union; political communication; politicization; social media; text analysis |
title_short |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
title_full |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
title_fullStr |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
title_sort |
A Bird’s Eye View: Supranational EU Actors on Twitter |
author |
Özdemir, Sina |
author_facet |
Özdemir, Sina Rauh, Christian |
author_role |
author |
author2 |
Rauh, Christian |
author2_role |
author |
dc.contributor.author.fl_str_mv |
Özdemir, Sina Rauh, Christian |
dc.subject.por.fl_str_mv |
European Union; political communication; politicization; social media; text analysis |
topic |
European Union; political communication; politicization; social media; text analysis |
description |
Given the politicization of European integration, effective public communication by the European Union (EU) has gained importance. Especially for rather detached supranational executives, social media platforms offer unique opportunities to communicate to and engage with European citizens. Yet, do supranational actors exploit this potential? This article provides a bird’s eye view by quantitatively describing almost one million tweets from 113 supranational EU accounts in the 2009–2021 period, focusing especially on the comprehensibility and publicity of supranational messages. We benchmark these characteristics against large samples of tweets from national executives, other regional organizations, and random Twitter users. We show that the volume of supranational Twitter has been increasing, that it relies strongly on the multimedia features of the platform, and outperforms communication from and engagement with other political executives on many dimensions. However, we also find a highly technocratic language in supranational messages, skewed user engagement metrics, and high levels of variation across institutional and individual actors and their messages. We discuss these findings in light of the legitimacy and public accountability challenges that supranational EU actors face and derive recommendations for future research on supranational social media messages. |
publishDate |
2022 |
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv |
2022-02-17 |
dc.type.status.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
dc.type.driver.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
format |
article |
status_str |
publishedVersion |
dc.identifier.uri.fl_str_mv |
https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4686 oai:ojs.cogitatiopress.com:article/4686 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4686 |
identifier_str_mv |
oai:ojs.cogitatiopress.com:article/4686 |
dc.language.iso.fl_str_mv |
eng |
language |
eng |
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv |
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4686 https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4686 https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4686/4686 https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/downloadSuppFile/4686/2273 |
dc.rights.driver.fl_str_mv |
Copyright (c) 2022 Sina Özdemir, Christian Rauh http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
rights_invalid_str_mv |
Copyright (c) 2022 Sina Özdemir, Christian Rauh http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
eu_rights_str_mv |
openAccess |
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv |
application/pdf |
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv |
Cogitatio |
publisher.none.fl_str_mv |
Cogitatio |
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv |
Politics and Governance; Vol 10, No 1 (2022): Analyzing Citizen Engagement with European Politics Through Social Media; 133-145 2183-2463 reponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação instacron:RCAAP |
instname_str |
Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação |
instacron_str |
RCAAP |
institution |
RCAAP |
reponame_str |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
collection |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
repository.name.fl_str_mv |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação |
repository.mail.fl_str_mv |
|
_version_ |
1799130667375656960 |