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1. Giorgio Comai (giocomai)'s status on Monday, 22-Jan-2018 12:11:24 CET Giorgio Comai
   My exploration of the European Parliament's twittersphere hints at a strong trend: representatives of anti-EU groups receive an amount of attention on Twitter (as recorded by "favorite" and "retweet") that is disproportionate to their electoral ratings.
   https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/Tools-for-journalists/Quote-Finder/Quote-Finder-notes/Tweeting-above-their-weight
   
   In 2017, tweets by members of the EP group that includes UKIP and Italy's Northern League received on average about 5 times more engagement than the average MEP. Even calculating the median, rather than the average, in order to reduce the impact of individual Twitter super-stars, the trend remains strong. Also leftist and green EP groups receive disproportionate attention, even if to a lesser extent. https://social.giorgiocomai.eu/attachment/19400
   • [MOVED] David Ross likes this.
   • Giorgio Comai (giocomai)'s status on Monday, 22-Jan-2018 12:12:16 CET Giorgio Comai

     in reply to
     Groups that unite the majority of EP members such as the EPP and S&D, on the contrary, receive a share of engagement that is considerably lower than their share of seats.
     
     A number of factors may lead or contribute to these results, including:
     1. smaller groups send to the EP their leaders; larger groups send backbanchers
     2. mainstream, nuanced positions attract less engagement on social media than strong or extrame takes
     3. bots, and such
     Is this a case of vocal minority VS silent majority? Is the very nature of social media giving more visibility to vocal minorities/more radical views? And, fundamentally, is this distorting the perception of what are commonly held opinions by the silent majority?
     As a relative newcomer to these questions, I'd welcome thoughts/insights/suggestions on further issues to explore.