Networked politics(31may2010)

Se Jung Park Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Media & Communication, Yeungnam University

Steven Sams WCU Webometrics Institute

Yon Soo Lim WCU Webometrics Institute

Sang Me Nam WCU Webometrics Institute

Han Woo Park Director, WCU Webometrics Institute

사이버커뮤니케이션학회 2010 봄철 정기학술대회 5 월 28 일

싸이월드에서의 네트워크 정치 참여

The use of a minihompy enables politicians to…

1) maintain their online presence 2) makes more direct communication with citizens 3) facilitate new political campaign strategies which are less constrained by journalistic interventions and legal obligations (Schweitzer, 2008) 4) reach individuals who are less interested in politics 5) maintain close relationship with citizens 6) comment citizens’ political opinion, thoughts, and feelings


First, few studies have examined the validity and scope of political communication.

Second, prior research has focused mainly on the interpersonal communication (Thewall & Wilkinson, 2009).

Third, most have been Korean-language publications (Jung, 2006; Kim & Cho, 2008; Kim, 2008; Lee & Ahn, 2009).


The goal of this paper is to analyze politicized network of Korean politics on Cyworld.

1) The comments posted on politicians’ minihompys are investigated

2) The sentiment included in visitor board are examined.


Literature Literature Review Review NormalizationNormalization InnovationInnovation

Definition Real-world features of politics are transferred to the Internet. Online communication is affected by typical offline patterns in the form of reinforcement (Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Schweitzer, 2008)

Bentivegna (2002) explained that the Internet leads to a fundamental change in the way politics is presented to the public.

Existed study1

Lee, Lancendorfer, and Lee (2005) examined the agenda-setting effect between online and traditional media during the 2000 general election and found that online political discourse is considerably influenced the traditional media campaign.

Kluver’s (2007) analysis of the political blogosphere in Singapore suggested that blogs have created new opportunities for political expression within the tightly controlled media ecosphere that exists in Singapore.

Existed study2

According to the analysis of politicians’ blogs in Korea, politicians have adopted blogging technologies as a means of conveying their opinions to supporters and visualizing offline political relationships (Park and Kluver, 2009).

Chang (2005) has suggested that the Internet provides a powerful alternative by challenging the existing conservative media.


Mapping of public Mapping of public commentscomments

How we analyze a number of comments?

Semantic analysis of the actual posts and comments

Sentiment analysis to identify the emotion that may be gleaned from such websites


Research Research QuestionsQuestions

(1) What are the keywords frequently found in comments posted on politicians’ minihompys, and what do they imply?

(2) Do citizens leave favorable or negative messages on politicians’ minihompys, and if so, why? To address these questions, a mixed content analysis approach was used.

Data collectionData collection

All comments between 1 April 2008 and 14 June 2009 from the visitor boards of Korean MPs were extracted using java-based e-research tool.

200comments from each politician’s visitor board were

randomly selected

Conducted textual analysis and sentiment analysis to identify the meaning of the contents


A mixed analysisA mixed analysis

• Semantic network analysisSemantic network analysis– Quantitative content anlaysis– Word frequencies using KrKwic– CONCOR (convergence of iteration correlation)– Visualization using Netdraw of Ucinet

• Sentiment analysisSentiment analysis- Qualitative content analysis- Mining emotion of posters

싸이월드에서의 네트워크 정치참여

• Number of labels by category

•PositivePositive : the post shows respect, support, or rapport with the National Assembly Member. It may suggest policy issues with gentle words or polite words.

•NegativeNegative : the post is hostile, adversarial, or rapport with the National Assembly Member. It may be trying to slander the National Assembly Member, or includes curse words.

•Irrelevant Irrelevant : the post has nothing to do with the National Assembly Member or his or her policy issues. It is a general comment on politics, or may be SPAM.

사이버 공간의 한국 - 중국 콘텐츠의 유형과 관계망

FindingsFindings

South Koreans fearing 'mad cow disease' fight US beef imports in May and June 2008

Word-Network map of Top 10 Word-Network map of Top 10 politicianspoliticians


CONCOR of comments through a Tree CONCOR of comments through a Tree DiagramDiagram


Subgroup Network of Subgroup Network of commentscomments

Findings

• “the people”, “person”, “we”, “country” and “South Korea” occurred frequently in the comments given to politicians. The results are shown in the Figure 3. These group-oriented terms representing Korean collectivism culture is consistent with cultural dimension of Hofstede (1991).

• In this context, people tend to consider their responsibility for fellow members of society with collectivism identity on politicians’ minihompys.


FindingsFindings

• The word denoting giggling ( ㅋ ), laughing ( ㅎ ) and the emoticon (^^) which represents smiling were used often. These kind of short onomatopoeic words are representative characteristics of Cyber language in Korea.


Result of Sentiment AnalysisResult of Sentiment Analysis

Positive comments Negative comments

• 안녕하세요 ^^ 힘내시고요 . 화이팅 !! • 존경해요 !!!!!!!!!!! • 의원님 너무 멋지십니다 ^^• 멋지십니다 !! 최고 !!^^ • 사랑하는 의원님 ! 오늘하루도 힘내세요 ! • 응원합니다 . ^0^ • 힘내세요 당신을 믿습니다 .^^ • 당선 축하드립니다 ^^ 정말 멋지신 분 ! • 감사합니다 . 사랑합니다♡ • 쏘핫 .. 머싯쓰세영ㅋ 저흰일촌 ..♡ ㅋㅋ

• XX 야 ! 쌍판 내밀지 마라 ! 토나온다 • 역겨워 ..• 창피한 줄 아세요 • 대가리 먹물깨나 든거 같은데 헛지랄했구나• 그대가 짱먹으세요 빈정대기짱 말꼬리잡기짱 • 우즈 플리즈 ! 닥쳐줄래 ??? 실실 쪼개지도 말고 가만있어 ! • 니들은 짖어라 그거군 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 인간부터 되시오 X 양 !• 그저 웃긴다 참나


The result of sentiment The result of sentiment analysisanalysis

Findings• Members of the ruling party received more negative

comments than those in the opposition party and this may have implications for governing officials when considering a presence on social community sites, such as Cyworld.

• Following the sentimental analysis, the collective sentiments present in Cyworld were discovered. The word map of political comments was used to provide an overview of the political landscape at a glance and this combined approach may provide a means to access user generated-feedback effectively.



ConclusionConclusion

This study found a significant relationship among gender, comment type, and Cyworld activity. First of all, sentimental comment type is significantly associated with Cyworld users’ gender type.

Specifically, female users contribute more positive comments than male users. This finding supports previous literature that women are more likely to engage in positive emotions in socially supportive contexts (Hoffman, 2008; Thelwall, Wikinson, & Uppal, 2009).

ConclusionConclusion• This study offers some preliminary implications

regarding SNS analysis on networked politics.

• A mixed content analysis that enables researchers to capture a massive political communication based on user-generated contents

• Sentimental classification of citizens’ comments locate public emotions toward politics.


Se Jung Park [email protected]

Steven Sams [email protected]

Yon Soo Lim [email protected]

Sang Me Nam [email protected]

Han Woo Park [email protected]

사이버커뮤니케이션학회 2010 봄철 정기학술대회 5 월 28 일

Networked politics(31may2010)

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