Studying political microblogging: Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign

He is also associated with The Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology. His research focuses on how organizations, societal institutions and their respective audiences make use of online interactivity and social media. His web site can be accessed at Univer §sity of Bergen. His PhD thesis from 2009 analyzed European public service broadcasters on the internet. He has recently undertaken a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council on how online media participation transforms the public sphere. ABSTRACT Among the many so-called microblogging services that allow their users to describe their current status in short posts, Twitter is probably among the most popular and well known. Since its launch in 2006, Twitter use has evolved and is increasingly used in a variety of contexts. This paper utilizes emerging online tools and presents a rationale for data collection and analysis of Twitter users. The suggested approach is exemplified with a case study: Twitter use during the 2010 Swedish election. Although many of the initial hopes for e-democracy appear to have gone largely unfulfilled, the successful employment of the Internet during the 2008 US presidential campaign has again raised voices claiming that the Internet, and particularly social media applications like Twitter, provides interesting opportunities for online campaigning and deliberation. Besides providing an overarching analysis of how Twitter use was fashioned during This is pre-print version of the paper forthcoming in New Media and Society: Larsson, Anders Olof and Moe, Hallvard (in press) Studying political microblogging. Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign. New Media and Society. the 2010 Swedish election campaign, this study identifies different user types based on how high-end users utilized the Twitter service. By suggesting a novel approach to the study of microblogging and by identifying user types, this study contributes to the burgeoning field of microblog research and gives specific insights into the practice of civic microblogging.