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Semantic Network Analysis in Social Sciences introduces the fundamentals of semantic network analysis and its applications in the social sciences. Readers learn how to easily transform any given text into a visual network of words co-occurring together, a process that allows mapping the main themes appearing in the text and revealing its main narratives and biases. Semantic network analysis is particularly useful today with the increasing volumes of text-based information available. It is one of the developing, cutting-edge methods to organize, identify patterns and structures, and understand the meanings of our information society. The first chapters in this book offer step-by-step guidelines for conducting semantic network analysis, including choosing and preparing the text, selecting desired words, constructing the networks, and interpreting their meanings. Free software tools and code are also presented. The rest of the book displays state-of-the-art studies from around the world that apply this method to explore news, political speeches, social media content, and even to organize interview transcripts and literature reviews. Aimed at scholars with no previous knowledge in the field, this book can be used as a main or a supplementary textbook for general courses on research methods or network analysis courses, as well as a starting point to conduct your own content analysis of large texts.

International news flow theory. International news flow: from theory to practice -- International news flow online -- The economic newsworthiness of countries -- Similarities and differences in practice. International news is American -- Global and regional trends in news prominence -- Many local views -- A local outlook of a global conflict -- International news influence. Short-term effect: agenda setting and the news-memory nexus -- Long-term effect: news, global views, and soft power -- International news flow: summary and conclusion -- Caveats and confluction

AbstractThe growing volumes of information available today provide opportunities but also challenges for social scientists. This paper presents textual network analysis—a network analysis procedure that transforms any given text into a visual map of words co‐occurring together. It aims at scholars and students who are not familiar with network analysis, showing step‐by‐step how to use this approach and highlighting its advantages and applications. It demonstrates how to identify the main themes appearing in the text as well as to detect its biases and frames. Researchers can use this procedure as a grounded content analysis to formulate theories or as a basis to test existing hypotheses. The second part of the paper presents two studies that applied textual network analysis: (a) to identify the main themes raised by elite newspapers on the "fake news" discourse and (b) to map the topics related to China on Twitter. Both examples show how textual network analysis can be relevant for communication, international relations, and political science scholars as well as for practitioners, wishing to understand the prevailing discourses and tailor their messages more effectively.

AbstractThis article outlines three major features of the digital society (information sharing, a levelled‐playing field, and reciprocal surveillance) and explores their manifestation in the field of diplomacy. The article analyzed the international network of 78 Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) on Twitter during the critical period of its growth between 2014 and 2016. To explain why some MFAs follow or are followed by their peers, both internal (Twitter) and external (gross domestic product) factors were considered. The analysis found the principle of digital reciprocity to be the most important factor in explaining an MFA's centrality. Ministries who follow their peers are more likely to be followed in return. Other factors that predict the popularity of MFAs among their peers are regionality, technological savviness, and national media environments. These findings provide a broader understanding of contemporary diplomacy and the fierce competition over attention in the digital society.

AbstractRecent years have seen mass adoption of social media by ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs). However, diplomats are still searching for ways to evaluate their online activity and assess the impact of online activities on offline diplomacy. This article argues that the centrality of a diplomatic institution to a Twitter network of its peer can be used to evaluate both online and offline diplomacy. Central actors on Twitter can set diplomats' offline agenda, influence how diplomats view issues being debated in diplomatic forums, gather information relevant to the policy formulation process and become information brokers between nations. Moreover, through a two‐year analysis of the Twitter networks of MFA and UN missions we demonstrate that diplomatic institutions can perform an act of upward social media mobility by which they become more central to Twitter networks. We also show that hard power resources such as the relative wealth of nations and their population size does not guarantee online centrality. Thus, diplomatic institutions may suffer from downward social media mobility in which they become less influential online. Finally, we identify a set of digital tactics and strategies that enable MFAs and embassies to become more central to Twitter networks of their peers.

This paper explores how provocation narratives introduce political bias in international news. It is based on a two-step methodology. First, a network analysis of country co-mentions in American, British, French, and German news corpus shows that core countries (e.g., the United States) and their opponents (e.g., North Korea, Russia, Iran) are the most frequently cited in provocation narratives. Focusing on the case where provocation narratives are the most prominent, the Korean conflict, we then employ a quantitative content analysis to identify the relationships between the countries involved in news stories using provocation narratives, and the role played by the provocation in those news stories. Our findings show that bias is introduced in many instances where journalists, while repeatedly identifying one country, North Korea, as the provocateur, omit key information such as the reasons behind North Korea's provocations or the identity of the provoked country. This indicates that provocation narratives adopt the core countries' geopolitical views and portray their enemies as a global threat.

Social media holds the potential to foster dialogue between nations and foreign populations. Yet only a few studies to date have investigated the manner in which digital diplomacy is practised by foreign ministries. Using Kent and Taylor's framework for dialogic communication, this article explores the extent to which dialogic communication is adopted by foreign ministries in terms of content, media channels and public engagement. The results of a six-week analysis of content published on Twitter and Facebook by eleven foreign ministries show that engagement and dialogic communication are rare. When engagement does occur, it is quarantined to specific issues. Social media content published by foreign ministries represents a continuous supply of press releases targeting foreign, rather than domestic, populations. A cross-national comparison revealed no discernible differences in the adoption of dialogic principles. Results therefore indicate that foreign ministries still fail to realize the potential of digital diplomacy to foster dialogue.