Abstract
Our study analyses interaction networks of Europhile and Eurosceptical parties from four European countries on Twitter in order to assess their connective behaviour on social media and its conditioning factors. We examine to what degree parties’ communication networks transcend national borders stabilising transnational pro- or anti-European cleavages and to what extent the possibilities of cross-ideological exchange and interaction facilitated by social media play out in the Twitter networks of European parties and their camps. Our analyses indicate a strong separation of ideological cleavages and country clusters around parties and actors from the same country but also traces of transnational and cross-ideological interactions between the networks of Europhile and Eurosceptical parties and their strategic functions.
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Heft, A., Wittwer, S., Pfetsch, B. (2017). Divided They Tweet? A Comparative Analysis of Twitter Networks of Pro- and Anti-EU Parties. In: Caiani, M., Guerra, S. (eds) Euroscepticism, Democracy and the Media. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59643-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59643-7_9
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