The following applies to all Figures: connections are created through the function of the so-called @-Mention (this means that accounts are directly mentioned or tagged) or a retweet. Figure 1 provides a dense network to explore, and illustrates those accounts mentioned by at least 20 different accounts in the six-month period in tweets containing the terms “AI” or “Artificial Intelligence”.
Why is this important? Restricting the number has allowed us to filter out such accounts that others deem to be less important. We do this especially for reasons of clarity. This means that the graphs only show a small section of the actors that are addressed on the topic of AI.
The color of the accounts in the graphs indicates the type of actor involved, e.g. whether it is a political account (e.g. belonging to a political party) or a journalistic account. However, there can also be individual persons behind an account, these tweeting privately and withholding information about their professional or occupational function. These have been anonymized for reasons of data protection. However, there are also accounts of people who do not express themselves privately, but are understood as public figures, these remaining in the network graphs if other accounts mention them frequently. What does the network depict?
What is represented in the network?
A network graph depicts two elements: nodes and edges. In Figures 1 and 2, the colored dots represent Twitter accounts, or “nodes”. The larger a node is, the more often that account was mentioned or retweeted with an @-Mention. Instances of different accounts referring to each other are depicted by lines between the nodes, or “edges”. The wider such an edge is, the more often the accounts refer to each other. Besides the size of the nodes and the width of the edges, what is also significant is the position in the network: the more often an account is referred to by other accounts depicted, or itself refers to these accounts, the more central this account is in the network. However, if an account that is referred to frequently (large node) has a more peripheral place in the network, then this indicates that the references come from accounts that are not depicted in the network.
Network of accounts mentioned by at least 20 different accounts on the topic of AI