Related papers: MP Twitter Engagement and Abuse Post-first COVID-1…
As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, outcomes depend on effective relationships between the public and decision-makers. In the UK there were uncivil tweets to MPs about perceived UK tardiness to go into lockdown. The pandemic has led to increased…
COVID-19 has given rise to malicious content online, including online abuse and hate toward British MPs. In order to understand and contextualise the level of abuse MPs receive, we consider how ministers use social media to communicate…
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…
We extend previous work about general election-related abuse of UK MPs with two new time periods, one in late 2018 and the other in early 2019, allowing previous observations to be extended to new data and the impact of key stages in the UK…
The 2019 UK general election took place against a background of rising online hostility levels toward politicians and concerns about its impact on democracy. We collected 4.2 million tweets sent to or from election candidates in the six…
Against a backdrop of tensions related to EU membership, we find levels of online abuse toward UK MPs reach a new high. Race and religion have become pressing topics globally, and in the UK this interacts with "Brexit" and the rise of…
The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting the world dramatically ever since 2020. The minimum availability of physical interactions during the lockdown has caused more and more people to turn to online activities on social media platforms.…
Purpose: Public attitudes towards COVID-19 and social distancing are critical in reducing its spread. It is therefore important to understand public reactions and information dissemination in all major forms, including on social media. This…
Timely access to accurate information is crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prompted by key stakeholders' cautioning against an "infodemic", we study information sharing on Twitter from January through May 2020. We observe an overall…
Engaging with online social media platforms is an important part of life as a public figure in modern society, enabling connection with broad audiences and providing a platform for spreading ideas. However, public figures are often…
Disengagement and disenchantment with the Parliamentary process is an important concern in today's Western democracies. Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK are therefore seeking new ways to engage with citizens, including being on digital…
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a bulk of scientific research and related Twitter discussions. To unravel the public concerns about the COVID-19 crisis reflected in the science-based Twitter conversations, this…
The COVID-19 pandemic has created many problems, especially in people's social lives. There has been increasing isolation and economic hardships since the beginning of the pandemic for people all over the world. Quarantines and lockdowns…
Numerous politicians use social media platforms, particularly X, to engage with their constituents. This interaction allows constituents to pose questions and offer feedback but also exposes politicians to a barrage of hostile responses,…
COVID-19 represents the most severe global crisis to date whose public conversation can be studied in real time. To do so, we use a data set of over 350 million tweets and retweets posted by over 26 million English speaking Twitter users…
Lockdown measures, implemented by governments during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce physical contact and limit viral spread, imposed significant restrictions on in-person social interactions. Consequently, individuals…
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, fears grew that making vaccination a political (instead of public health) issue may impact the efficacy of this life-saving intervention, spurring the spread of vaccine-hesitant content. In this…
The outbreak of the novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has greatly influenced people's daily lives across the globe. Emergent measures and policies (e.g., lockdown, social distancing) have been taken by governments to combat this highly…
Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, users are increasingly turning to online services. An increase in social media usage has also been observed, leading to the suspicion that this has also raised cyberbullying. In this initial work, we explore…
Online Social Networks represent a novel opportunity for political campaigns, revolutionising the paradigm of political communication. Nevertheless, many studies uncovered the presence of d/misinformation campaigns or of malicious…