The Mechanisms of Twitter Audience Reach

► Jean-Yves DORMAGEN, Julien BOYADJIAN, Marie NEIHOUSER

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PROJET ANR IMAGIWEB

► To analyze the distribution of the audience on Twitter

► To explain the mechanisms for building a large audience onTwitter

►Main hypothesis : the social position of the author – « in thereal world », off line – is much more decisive on the size of hisTwitter audience than his level of activity on the social network

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Main goals of the research

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Methods

► Using a french software – AMI Opinion Tracker – we collectedand filed all the tweets referring to the main French politicalfigures and parties during the last presidential election(2012)

► The software identified 147 420 accounts

► For each of this accounts, the software recorded 11informations : number of tweets posted, number off peoplefollowed, number of followers, number of political tweets,number of political tweets posted by the account, etc.

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Methods (1)

► We then made a classification of the 147,420 accountsaccording to our audience index

► audience index : A = X * (Y/Z)

► X : number of followers ; Y : number of political retweets; Z :number of political tweets

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Methods (2)

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► To create our Twitter audience panel : we used the accountsthat meet the following 3 criteria

► 3 criteria :

Have at least 2000 followers

Have had a political tweet retweeted at least two times

Have an audience index above 5000

Méthodes (3)

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2

3

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► 1 116 accounts are included in the panel

►For each account : manual online research in orderto clarify the social position of the author and thenumber of his appearances in the mainstream media

Methods (4)

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Results

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Results 1 : The extreme audience concentration in politicalTwittersphere

French political Twittersphere (n = 147 420 accounts)

► 0.1% of accounts accumulate 24% of followers

► 1% of accounts accumulate 55% of followers

► 5% of accounts accumulate 76% of followers

► 0.1% of accounts are the source of 32% of retweets

► 1% of accounts are the source of 66% of retweets

► 5% of accounts are the source of 87% of retweets

► Half accounts have no retweet – Only 10% of accounts have 6 or more

retweets during the presidential election

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Results 2 : A very high audience concentration even withinthe audience panel

► Distribution by decile of audience of the number of followersand of audience index (N = 1116)

Decile of audience Number of followers

Audience index average

D1 3269 7445

D2 4372 9815

D3 5452 12758

D4 6827 17365

D5 8452 25373

D6 10511 36928

D7 14381 61379

D8 22776 118042

D9 52605 311999

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Résultats 3 : The panel is made of figures evolving in media-coveredfields

Authors %

Others (bloggers and Twittos)

26,7

Media figures 29,6

Politicians 13,7

Media 18

Activists 1,2

Organisations 5,1

Artists, comedians… 5,7

Total 100

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Results 4 : The panel is dominated by figures who have access to mainstream media

Décile of

audience

Appareance in a mainstream media

No Yes

Top decile 18.1% 81.9%

Median decile 60.7% 39.3%

Bottom decile 81.3% 18.8%

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Results 5 : The panel top audience is dominated by figures holding the highest positions in highly media-covered fields

Variables dans l'équation

A E.S. Wald ddl Sig. Exp(B)

Etape 1a Médiacat.1surDailyMotion(1) 1,342 ,343 15,286 1 ,000 3,828

Plushautindicateurdepositio

n

15,443 2 ,000

Plushautindicateurdepositio

n(1)

-,252 ,732 ,118 1 ,731 ,777

Plushautindicateurdepositio

n(2)

1,340 ,636 4,444 1 ,035 3,820

Constante -3,827 ,596 41,272 1 ,000 ,022

a. Variable(s) entrées à l'étape 1 : Médiacat.1surDailyMotion, Plushautindicateurdeposition.

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Conclusions

►Very few accounts have the ability to distribute political signals to a widepublic

► Only around a hundred accounts have a real audience inside politicalTwittersphere

► These accounts belong to mainstream media or to people holding toppositions in fields that receve extensive media coverage

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Conclusion s

► Twitter enable a hyper-concentration of the audience

► Twitter increases the influence of people who already haveaudience

► Twitter is a network where accumulated media fame capitalcan be converted in a new type of digital audience capital

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Conclusion s