The Emergence of Political Discourse on Digital Networks: The Case of the Occupy Movement

How does political discourse spread in digital networks? Can we empirically test if certain conceptual frames of social movements have a correlate on their online discussion networks? Through an analysis of the Twitter data from the Occupy movement, this paper describes the formation of political discourse over time. Building on a priori set of concepts, derived from theoretical discussions about the movement and its roots, we analyze the data to observe when those concepts start to appear within the networks, who are those Twitter users responsible for them, and what are the patterns through which those concepts spread. Our findings show that, although there are some signs of opportunistic behavior among activists, most of them are central nodes from the onset of the network, and shape the discussions across time. These central activists do not only start the conversations around given frames, but also sustain over time and become key members of the network. From here, we aim to provide a thorough account of the “travel” of political discourse, and the correlate of online conversational networks with theoretical accounts of the movement.

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