Few voices, strong echo: Measuring follower homogeneity of politicians’ Twitter accounts

Politicians have discovered Twitter as a tool for political communication. If information provided by politicians is circulated in ideologically segregated user networks, polarization may be fostered. Using network on all 1.78 million unique followers of German Members Parliament October 2018, follower homogeneity across and parties measured. While the overall low, AfD—a right-wing populist party—stand out with very homogeneous networks. These are largely driven small group strongly committed partisans that make up around 7% party’s but 55–75% average AfD politician’s followers. The findings add to literature showing potentially unequal distributions segregation Twitter. Furthermore, they suggest groups active users can multiply their influence online, which has important implications future research echo chambers other online phenomena.