Abstract

While previous research efforts have revealed the significant civic and political potential of interpersonal interactions in social media, the dynamics of political discourse in online social networks remains to be explicated. With an interest on understanding the potential to function as an egalitarian public sphere for political discourse, this study investigates the flow of political information and the concentration of discussion in the social media context. More specifically, this study examines Twitter data and reveals that patterns of information flow can be linked to the different levels of influence exerted by its users on Twitter. In addition, the results of this study suggest that political conversations in Twitter tend to be concentrated, rather than creating an equal playing field. Future implications of social media as a democratic public sphere for are discussed.