Social Network Analysis: Political Elite Actors #DemokratLawanBegal on Twitter


Abstract
This research explores the impact of the #DemokratLawanBegal hashtag on Twitter, focusing on its role in shaping political discourse and influencing party leaders' alignment. It aims to uncover relationships among elite actors and identify influential figures within the Twitter network using this hashtag. Drawing on concepts like political communication, political elites, Twitter's importance, and Social Network Analysis (SNA), the study adopts SNA methodologies with tools like Netlytic and Gephi Apps. Data collection occurred throughout 3-10 April 2023 to maintain relevance. The findings highlight the significant impact of the #DemokratLawanBegal hashtag in shaping political discourse and the power struggle within the Democratic Party. AHY emerges as a more influential figure than Moeldoko, and Twitter, particularly through this hashtag, plays a central role in political communication and framing strategies. Social Network Analysis reveals a closely interconnected network of actors, with the official Democratic Party account (@pdemokrat) central to information dissemination. Some actors facilitate swift information sharing (closeness centrality), while others serve as key connectors (betweenness centrality). These insights deepen our understanding of contemporary political communication dynamics, offering implications for political campaigns, policy advocacy, and digital strategies.
References
Bakry, G. N., & Kusmayadi, I. M. (2021). Peran Pers Sebagai Aktor Gerakan Digital Tagar #SolidaritasUntukNTT di Twitter. Jurnal Kajian Jurnalisme, 5(1), 98. https://doi.org/10.24198/jkj.v5i1.33458
Bentivegna, S., & Marchetti, R. (2015). Live tweeting a political debate: The case of the ‘Italia bene comune’. European Journal of Communication, 30, 631 - 647.Bussell, J. (2020). Shadowing as a Tool for Studying Political Elites. Political Analysis, 28(4), 469-486. doi:10.1017/pan.2020.14
Borgatti, Stephen P, Martin G Everett, J. C. J. (2018). Analyzing Social Networks (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://www.perlego.com/book/1431999/analyzing-social-networks-pdf
Carnia, E., Fermadona, B., Napitupulu, H., Anggriani, N., & Supriatna, A. K. (2021). Implementation of cen‐ trality measures in graph represented information spreads with hashtag #BersatuLawanCorona in Twit‐ ter. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1722, Article 012068. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742‐6596/ 1722/1/012068
Elmezain M, Othman EA, Ibrahim HM. (2021) Temporal degree– degree and closeness–closeness: a new centrality metrics for social network analysis. Mathematics 9:2850. https://doi.org/10. 3390/math9222850
Gruzd, A. A., Mai, P., & Kampen, A. (2016). A How-to for Using Netlytic to collect and Analyze Social Media Data: A Case Study of the Use of Twitter During the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine.
Johansson, Elena (2019). Social media in political communication: A substitute for conventional media? in Karl Magnus Johansson & Gunnar Nygren (eds.) Close and distant: Political executive–media relations in four countries, pp. 149-174. Göteborg: Nordicom.
Jost, J. T., Barberá, P., Bonneau, R., Langer, M., Metzger, M., Nagler, J., Sterling, J., & Tucker, J. A. (2018). How Social Media Facilitates Political Protest: Information, Motivation, and Social Networks. Political Psychology, 39(3), 85–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12478
Karlsen, R., & Enjolras, B. (2016). Styles of Social Media Campaigning and Influence in a Hybrid Political Communication System: Linking Candidate Survey Data with Twitter Data. International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(3), 338–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161216645335
Keller, F. B. (2016). Moving beyond factions: Using social network analysis to uncover patronage networks among Chinese elites. Journal of East Asian Studies, 16(1), 17–41. https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2015.3
Kertzer J. D., Renshon J. (2022). Experiments and surveys on political elites. Annual Review of Political Science, 25(1), 529–550.
Lilleker, D. G., Tenscher, J., & Štětka, V. (2015). Towards hypermedia campaigning? Perceptions of new media’s importance for campaigning by party strategists in comparative perspective. Information Communication and Society, 18(7), 747–765. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.993679
Medina Serrano, J. C., Papakyriakopoulos, O., & Hegelich, S. (2020). Dancing to the Partisan Beat: A First Analysis of Political Communication on TikTok. WebSci 2020 - Proceedings of the 12th ACM Conference on Web Science, 157–166. https://doi.org/10.1145/3394231.3397916
Nugraha, P. A., Joram, S. Z., Ngemas, N. S. A. T., & Ardyananda, R. (2022). Analisis Struktur Jaringan Sosial Pengguna Twitter dengan Tagar #G20Indonesia. Mediakom: Jurnal Ilmu Komunikasi, 6(1), 29-42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.35760/mkm.2022.v6i1.6471
Priadana, A., & Tahalea, S. P. (2021). Hashtag activism and message frames: social network analysis of Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in Indonesia. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1836(1), 12031. IOP Publishing.
Primario, S., Borrelli, D., Zollo, G., Iandoli, L., & Lipizzi, C. (2017). Measuring polarization in Twitter enabled in online political conversation: The case of 2016 US Presidential election. Proceedings - 2017 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration, IRI 2017, 2017-Janua, 607–613. https://doi.org/10.1109/IRI.2017.73
Sloan, Luke (2017). Who Tweets in the United Kingdom? Profiling the Twitter Population Using the British Social Attitudes Survey 2015. Social Media + Society, 3(1), 205630511769898–. doi:10.1177/2056305117698981
Srinanda, D., Sisilia, K., & Perangingangin, Y. (2020). Analisis promosi penjualan Gopay dengan menggunakan social network analysis di media sosial twitter. Journal of Applied Business Administration, 4(2), 163-170. https://doi.org/10.30871/jaba.v4i2.2120
Stieglitz, S., Dang-Xuan, L. (2013). Social media and political communication: a social media analytics framework. Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 3, 1277–1291 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-012-0079-3
Ummah, Khairah. (2023). CNN.Com. Babak baru kudeta demokrat, AHY ungkap Moeldoko Ajukan PK. Retrieved from https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20230403121255-32-932811/babak-baru-kudeta-demokrat-ahy-ungkap-moeldoko-ajukan-pk pada 4 April 2023.
Vergara, Luis G., (2013). "Elites, Political Elites, and Social Change in Modern Societies" Revista de Sociologia 28. pp. 31-49
Vromen, Ariadne; Xenos, Michael A.; Loader, Brian (2015). Young people, social media and connective action: from organisational maintenance to everyday political talk. Journal of Youth Studies, 18(1), 80–100. doi:10.1080/13676261.2014.933198
Weij, F., & Berkers, P. (2022). Artivist reception on Twitter: art, politics and social media. Information Communication and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.2020868
Woldense, J. (2017). The ruler’s game of musical chairs: Shuffling during the reign of Ethiopia’s last emperor. Social Networks. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2017.07.002
Copyright (c) 2024 Jurnal Komunikasi Profesional

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Jurnal Komunikasi Profesional is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
1. Proposed Policy for Journals That Offer Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
2. Proposed Policy for Journals That Offer Delayed Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work [SPECIFY PERIOD OF TIME] after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).