Profiling Twitter Activists: the Protests Against the Republic of Croatia’s Government

Abstract

Twitter s a social network and a microblogging service. Examples from Iran, Tunisia and Egypt have shown the possibilities of using Twitter as a platform for activism. This research looks at the manner in which Croatian activists use this tool and how such users and uses are distinct from average users. This paper establishes that activist users differ vastly from average Twitter users. Activist users have a significantly higher number of friends and followers. An increase in the number of friends leads to an increase in the number of followers (and vice versa). In addition, activist users publish a large number of posts regardless of their follower number, even though that number is significantly higher than that of friends. Activist users forward interesting information more often, while they disregard Twitter as a tool for conversation or coordination. Still, activist users and average users are similar in regard to the poster’s profile and posting quantity. Both categories of users follow the power-law distribution.