Social media are decentralized, interactive, and transformative, empowering users to produce and spread information to influence others. This has changed the dynamics of political communication that were previously dominated by traditional corporate news media. Having hundreds of millions of tweets collected over the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections gave us a unique opportunity to measure the change in polarization and the diffusion of political information. We analyze the diffusion of political information among Twitter users and investigate the change of polarization between these elections and how this change affected the composition and polarization of influencers and their retweeters. We identify "influencers" by their ability to spread information and classify them into those affiliated with a media organization, a political organization, or unaffiliated. Most of the top influencers were affiliated with media organizations during both elections. We found a clear increase from 2016 to 2020 in polarization among influencers and among those whom they influence. Moreover, 75% of the top influencers in 2020 were not present in 2016, demonstrating that such status is difficult to retain. Between 2016 and 2020, 10% of influencers affiliated with media were replaced by center- or right-orientated influencers affiliated with political organizations and unaffiliated influencers.
翻译:社交媒体是分散的、互动的和变革性的,使用户能够制作和传播影响他人的信息。这改变了以往由传统公司新闻媒体主宰的政治传播动态。美国总统选举在2016年和2020年收集了数亿条推特,这给了我们一个独特的机会来衡量两极分化和政治信息传播的变化。我们分析了推特用户之间的政治信息传播情况,并调查了这些选举之间的两极分化变化,以及这种变化如何影响影响影响影响影响者及其retweters的组成和两极分化。我们发现,由于他们传播信息的能力,以及将其归类为与媒体组织、政治组织或无关联者的联系,我们发现“影响力者”是“影响力者 ” 。大多数顶级影响者在两次选举中都与媒体组织有联系。我们发现,从2016年到2020年,影响者之间及其影响者之间的两极分化明显增加。此外,2020年75%的顶级影响者在2016年没有出现,表明这种地位难以保留。2016年至2020年,10%的与媒体有关联的影响者被与政治组织和无关联的中或右派影响者所取代。