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This article analyzes topics of European relevance on Twitter. It does so by examining #schengen and #ttip Twitter hashtags as a case study. The purpose of this article is to detect which accounts are most important in terms of the number of ties received, and whether they are elite or non-elite actors. This is done by calculating the in-degree and out-degree scores of nodes involved in the networks generated by the usage of the two hashtags. The research reveals that it is easier for civil society and citizens to enjoy an important level of attention similar to that of the media, institutions and politicians on topics of European relevance. The outcomes of this research are important when it comes to understanding how a digital platform such as Twitter contributes to bottom-up conversations about relevant European topics. What we learn here about the structure and configuration of these networks helps us obtaining a more fine-grained understanding of new forms of communication and interaction used by citizens, and their implications for the emergence of a European Public Sphere.

Published: 15 July 2018 ; This article analyzes topics of European relevance on Twitter. It does so by examining #schengen and #ttip Twitter hashtags as a case study. The purpose of this article is to detect which accounts are most important in terms of the number of ties received, and whether they are elite or non-elite actors. This is done by calculating the in-degree and out-degree scores of nodes involved in the networks generated by the usage of the two hashtags. The research reveals that it is easier for civil society and citizens to enjoy an important level of attention similar to that of the media, institutions and politicians on topics of European relevance. The outcomes of this research are important when it comes to understanding how a digital platform such as Twitter contributes to bottom-up conversations about relevant Europe-an topics. What we learn here about the structure and configuration of these networks helps us obtaining a more fine-grained understanding of new forms of communication and interaction used by citizens, and their implications for the emergence of a European Public Sphere.

Die Existenz einer Öffentlichkeit ist für eine demokratische Gesellschaft – also auch für Europa – von existenzieller Bedeutung: Sie ermöglicht offene Debatten und Informationsaustausch und ist so letztendlich unverzichtbar für die demokratische Willensbildung. (APuZ)

Article first published online: November 28, 2019 ; The aim of this study was to explore social media, and specifically Twitter's potential to generate a European demos. Our use of data derived from social media complements the traditional use of mass media and survey data within existing studies. We selected two Twitter hashtags of European relevance, #schengen and #ttip, to test several theories on a European demos (non-demos, European democracy, or pan-European demos) and to determine which of these theories was most applicable in the case of Twitter topics of European relevance. To answer the research question, we performed sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis performed on data gathered on social media platforms, such as Twitter, constitutes an alternative methodological approach to more formal surveys (e.g., Eurobarometer) and mass media content analysis. Three dimensions were coded: (1) sentiments toward the issue public, (2) sentiments toward the European Union (EU), and (3) the type of framing. Among all of the available algorithms for conducting sentiment analysis, integrated sentiment analysis (iSA), developed by the Blog of Voices at the University of Milan, was selected for the data analysis. This is a novel supervised algorithm that was specifically designed for analyses of social networks and the Web 2.0 sphere (Twitter, blogs, etc.), taking the abundance of noise within digital environments into consideration. An examination and discussion of the results shows that for these two hashtags, the results were more aligned with the demoicracy and "European lite identity" models than with the model of a pan-European demos.

Abstract
Forging the World: Strategic Narrative and International Relations, Alister Miskimmon, Ben O'Loughlin and Laura Roselle (eds) (2018) 1st ed., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 340 pp., ISBN: 978 0 472 12250 9, e-book, $39.95, ISBN: 978 0 472 13021 4, h/bk, $85.00, ISBN: 978 0 472 03704 9, p/bk, $39.95
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