The Networked Amplification of Activist Voices: Designing an Empirical Framework for Evaluating the Success and Challenges of Information Diffusion Efforts During Hashtag Campaigns

Liu, K.-C., Ophir, Y., Itai Himelboim, & Walter, D. (Forthcoming). “The Networked Amplification of Activist Voices: Designing an Empirical Framework for Evaluating the Success and Challenges of Information Diffusion Efforts During Hashtag Campaigns.” Accepted for publication in the International Journal of Communication. 

Abstract: The hashtag campaign around #TWforWHO and #TaiwanCanHelp aimed to bring international attention to Taiwan’s exclusion from the global COVID-19 pandemic response. We use this campaign as a case study to develop and apply a social network analysis framework for evaluating hashtag campaign diffusion. We collected and analyzed a total of 121,711 tweets containing the two hashtags that were published between February 9th and May 2nd, 2020, resulting in a retweet social network created by 23,715 users. We find that on three out of four indicators of growth – increase in size, geographical spread, and inclusion of elite users – the movement showed improvement over time, but conversely, the network had become less stable. We find no evidence for major changes in the campaign’s reach following a paid advertisement in the New York Times. The suggested approach provides guidelines for future understanding and assessing of message propagation by both elites and non-elites.