Gorrell, G., Greenwood, M., Roberts, I. et al. (2 more authors) (Submitted: 2018) Online Abuse of UK MPs in 2015 and 2017: Perpetrators, Targets, and Topics. arXiv. (Submitted)
Abstract
Concerns have reached the mainstream about how social media are affecting political outcomes. One trajectory for this is the exposure of politicians to online abuse. In this paper we use 1.4 million tweets from the months before the 2015 and 2017 UK general elections to explore the abuse directed at politicians. This collection allows us to look at abuse broken down by both party and gender and aimed at specific Members of Parliament. It also allows us to investigate the characteristics of those who send abuse and their topics of interest. Results show that in both absolute and proportional terms, abuse increased substantially in 2017 compared with 2015. Abusive replies are somewhat less directed at women and those not in the currently governing party. Those who send the abuse may be issue-focused, or they may repeatedly target an individual. In the latter category, accounts are more likely to be throwaway. Those sending abuse have a wide range of topical triggers, including borders and terrorism.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Author(s). For reuse permissions, please contact the Author(s). |
Keywords: | Computers and Society (cs.CY) |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Computer Science (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Apr 2018 11:18 |
Last Modified: | 25 Apr 2018 14:36 |
Published Version: | https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.01498 |
Status: | Submitted |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:129666 |