Analysing conversations on Twitter: D o e-petitions help to increase public engagement with politics? Molly Asher, Data Science Intern, Leeds Institute for Data Analytics Dr. Viktoria Spaiser, UAF at School of Politics and International Studies Prof. Cristina Leston Bandeira, School of Politics and International Studies The project is a pilot study in preparation for a major ESRC research grant bid on “Connecting People and Parliament: Evaluating the UK Parliament’s e-Petitions System”
Transcript
Analysing conversations on Twitter: Do e-petitions help to increase public engagement with politics?
Molly Asher, Data Science Intern, Leeds Institute for Data Analytics
Dr. Viktoria Spaiser, UAF at School of Politics and International Studies
Prof. Cristina Leston Bandeira, School of Politics and International Studies
The project is a pilot study in preparation for a major ESRC research grant bid on “Connecting People and Parliament: Evaluating the UK Parliament’s e-Petitions System”
Leader of the House of Commons:“Could be the catalyst for a fundamental change in the relationship between Parliament and the petitioner”.
Title of issue HashtagNumber of signatures
Number of tweets
Number of users involved
Invoke Article 50 of The Lisbon Treaty immediately. #exitingtheeudebate 127,111 32 23Debate in the House the Local Government Pension Scheme Investment Regulations #lgps 105,772 25 23Ban driven grouse shooting #grouseshooting 123,077 7,364 2,704
Urge the South Korean Government to end the brutal dog meat trade #DogMeatTrade 102,131 2,997 1,113
Stop retrospective changes to the student loans agreement #StudentLoanDebate 133,969 86 81Include expressive arts subjects in the Ebacc #EbaccDebate 102,499 3,283 1,451Stop spending a fixed 0.7 per cent slice of our national wealth on Foreign Aid #UKAidDebate 235,979 7,474 3,092Stop Cameron spending British taxpayer's money on Pro-EU Referendum leaflets
#EUReferendumLeaflet 221,866 48 41
Give the Meningitis B vaccine to ALL children, not just newborn babies. #menb 823,348 141 87
Keep the NHS Bursary #NHSBursary 162,568 447 292The DDRB's proposals to change Junior Doctor's contracts CANNOT go ahead. #JuniorDoctors 110,065 224 176Make an allowance for up to 2 weeks term time leave from school for holiday. #termtimeholiday 127,199 4 4
Fund more research into brain tumours, the biggest cancer killer of under-40s (April) #braintumourresearc 120,129 630 282
EU Referendum Rules triggering a 2nd EU Referendum #EURefDebate 4,149,757 6 4
Make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work #heelsatwork 152,420 272 75
Restrict the use of fireworks to reduce stress and fear in animals and pets #FireworkDebate 104,038 92 50
Is anyone taking part?
Natural Language Processing & Text Mining• Topics: from words to networks
Word 1 Word 2 Weight
Debate Grouseshooting 1931
Ban Grouseshooting 853
Grouse Grouseshooting 739
Driven Grouseshooting 722
Grouseshooting mps 567
Ban Debate 487
Debate Mps 483
Grouse Shooting 475
Grouseshooting Moors 403
Ban Driven 378
Debate
Grouseshooting
“You may know a word by the company it keeps” – John Firth
Natural Language Processing & Text Mining• Topics: from words to networks
Tweets: Debate
Community Detection based upon maximising modularity.
Modularity: how many links within communities there are compared with links between communities
Natural Language Processing & Text Mining• Topics: from words to networks
Natural Language Processing & Text Mining• Topics: from words to networks
Tweets: Debate
• Heather• Flooding• Henharrier• Ecology• Calderdale• Environment• Review• Study
Natural Language Processing & Text Mining• Topics: from words to networks
Tweets: Oral Evidence session
• Difference in reaction to two forms of parliamentary session interesting
• Oral Evidence session allowed petition creator and others to present evidence
• Danger that debate process may not be conducive to the e-petition aims
Next stages:
• Social network analysis• Retweet/mentions networks: Who is involved in the debates on Twitter
and how are they connected?• Comparing participants & connections across various debates
Take away points:
• Conversations on twitter can help us to understand more about the e-petition system and whether it is increasing feelings of trust and engagement with politics
• It is possible to understand text from twitter quickly and effectively using semantic network analysis
