Affiliations: [a] Information and Computer Sciences Department,
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA | Business School, Fundacion Universidad de las Americas Puebla, Puebla, Mexico | Information Systems Department, Faculty of Business Administration, Université Laval, Quebec, PQ, Canada | College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, South Wing, College Park, MD, USA
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Scott P. Robertson, Information and
Computer Sciences Department, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
E-mail: scott.robertson@hawaii.edu
Abstract: The news feeds of two U.S. politicians' Facebook sites were examined
across 22 months leading up to an election in order to explore changes in
social-network-mediated public political discourse over time. Changes over time
were observed in who was being addressed and in the affective valence of
comments. A complex flow of attention between in-group and out-group concerns
was observed, with in-group comments dominant both in early and late phases.
Also, positive comments decreased and negative comments increased over time.
These phenomena, dubbed "reflection-to-selection" and "converging
sentiment", were refined to explain the observed nonlinearities. The flow of
rational versus affective comments in politicians' Facebook data across time
was also explored. Comments reflecting cognition were more prevalent at all
times than comments reflecting affect, but their distribution also varied in
complex ways over time. Finally, the concept of "potential public sphere" in
contrast to "realized public sphere" in virtual spaces is introduced.
Keywords: Digital government, social networking, e-participation, e-citizenship, virtual public sphere
