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Abstract
By analyzing all of the keywords and hashtags that became Trending Topics (TTs) in the Italian Twittersphere during both an electoral period and a non-electoral period, we evaluated what Italian Twitter users discussed. We found that topics about actors and issues in the entertainment field (e.g., singers, Hollywood stars and television stars) drive Italian discussions and that the political sphere is a secondary topic that elicits minor arguments within users’ conversations. However, we believe that even this low level of discussion about politics was able to influence the public agenda, thanks to the advent of a hybrid media system in Italy. In fact, Italian print media and television constantly covered the individual tweets or hashtags of a niche of citizens who were discussing politics on Twitter. Television, a part of the Italian media system that is highly consumed by the public, is also a primary factor in determining the appearance of a specific actor or issue on the TT list. Furthermore, we empirically confirmed the logic of breaking news events on Twitter, a microblogging site that primarily focuses on exceptional occurrences.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 By separating the concepts of social networks and social media, we are referring to the classification set up by Murthy (Citation2013, 9–10), according to which: “social networks are friend-based networks where maintaining and developing friendship ties are critical (Facebook is a prime example of this). Social media are designed as broadcast media, whose intention is to publish content to networks known and unknown to the author (Twitter is the most prominent example of this). There are different types of social media, such as image-and-video-oriented social media. Twitter is one example of a microblogging-based social medium.”
2 The TT list differs dramatically from country to country and, in some cases, from city to city, especially in the United States. As for the Italian case, Twitter allows us to display TTs at the national level or for seven cities only. Assuming that the Italian Twittersphere does not vary significantly at the city level and wanting to conduct our research at the national level, we downloaded and analyzed the “Italy Trends.”
3 To properly use the API, one must know the geographic identifier (WOEID) of the area from which sheor he wants to retrieve the TTs (23424853 for Italy).
4 There is one request every five minutes; thus, 24 hours = 1440 minutes/5 = 288 requests.
5 During the first time interval, the sample lost totalled 23. Considering that 100 percent of the sample in this interval was 16,128 (288 × 56), the percentage lost was 0.142 percent (0.14 percent).
6 During the second interval, the sample lost totalled 17. Considering that 100 percent of the sample in this interval was also 16,128 (288 × 56), the percentage lost was 0.105 percent (0.11 percent).
7 For an in-depth and exhaustive analysis of the Movimento 5 Stelle, see Bordignon and Ceccarini (Citation2013). Here, it is sufficient to remember that the communication strategy of Beppe Grillo centered only on the Web, in particular on his blog and on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
8 All of these election results refer only to the Chamber of Deputies.
9 For example, on Wednesday February 13, 85 percent of the TTs were coded as belonging to the entertainment category. Most of the TTs, both keywords and hashtags, referred to the Sanremo Music Festival.