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Virtual communities? The Middle East revolutions at the Guardian forum: Comment Is Free

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  • Interdisciplinary Physics
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Abstract

We investigate the possibility of virtual community formation in an online social network under a rapid increase of activity of members and newcomers. The evolution is studied of the activity of online users at the Guardian — Comment Is Free forum — covering topics related to the Middle East turmoil during the period of 1st of January 2010 to the 28th of March 2011. Despite a threefold upsurge of forum users and the formation of a giant component, the main network characteristics, i.e. degree and weight distribution and clustering coefficient, remained almost unchanged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sandtable Ltd., 20-22 Bedford Row, London, WC1R 4EB, UK

    B. Kujawski

  2. MES Group, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    P. Abell

Authors
  1. B. Kujawski
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  2. P. Abell
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Correspondence to B. Kujawski.

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Kujawski, B., Abell, P. Virtual communities? The Middle East revolutions at the Guardian forum: Comment Is Free. Eur. Phys. J. B 83, 525–529 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-20478-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-20478-1

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