An Empirical Study of Czech Journalists on Twitter Josef Šlerka, Petr Koubský

1. Do Birds of a Feather
Flock Together?
An Empirical Study of Czech Journalists on Twitter
Josef Šlerka, Petr Koubský

2. Case studies
How do Czech journalists follow each other? What is
more important: being same (homophily) or being
close (propinquity)?
Who is recognized as an Twitter influencer by Czech
journalists?
Are there common opinion leaders?
If yes, who are they?

3. Datasets
The list of 446 journalists created by crowdsourcing
(partially prepared by Lenka Krsova)
Data downloaded by R Retweet tool
Downloaded in April 2018

5. Basic summary

6. Top by followers
Jaromír Bosák
MartinVeselovský
Robert Záruba
Jindrich Sidlo
Miloš Čermák
Erik Tabery
Václav Moravec
Alexandr Mitrofanov
Filip Horký
Erik Best
0 75000 150000 225000 300000

7. Top publishers
Český rozhlas
Economia
Česká televize
Mafra
ex-Mafra
Seznam Zprávy
0 27,5 55 82,5 110
316 accounts of total 446 belong to one of publishers listed above

8. How do they follow
each other

9. Methods
For clustering, we used Vincent D. Blondel algorithm
Vincent D Blondel, Jean-Loup Guillaume, Renaud Lambiotte,
Etienne Lefebvre, Fast unfolding of communities in large networks,
in Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment 2008
We used ForceAtlas for visualization.
ForceAtlas: A Continuous Graph Layout Algorithm for Handy
Network Visualization https://medialab.sciencespo.fr/publications/
Jacomy_Heymann_Venturini-Force_Atlas2.pdf

11. Top accounts of journalists
The percentage of other journalists watching them
MartinVeselovský
Jindřich Šídlo
Erik Tabery
Filip Horký
Alexandr Mitrofanov
Robert Casensky
Filip Rožánek
Michal Kubal
Miloš Čermák
František Lutonský
0 20 40 60 80

12. Czech public
broadcasting
83% of listed here are
Czech Radio employees
and co-workers.
There are also people
who worked for/in the
Czech public
broadcasting for a long
time in the past

13. Sports journalists
and others
68% of listed are sports
journalist and editors
There are also people
who have worked as
sports journalists in the
past

14. Czech TV & others
75% are Czech TV
employees
There are also
freelancers who worked
for Czech TV

15. Economia & others
57% are journalists and
editors of Economia
publishing house
High share of former
Economia workers and
editors of economic
titles

16. MAFRA, ex-MAFRA
& others
About 40% are the
current and former
editors of MAFRA
publishing house.

17. Conclusion
For journalists, the professional role of the propinquity
played a major role in their network.
Interest (homophily) in specific topics has led to a
stronger link among sports journalists.

18. Who are influencers
for Czech journalists

19. Methods
We have prepared a list of users followed by 30 and
more percent of journalists: 137 users

20. Segmentation
9 %
6 %
18 %
23 %
44 %
Czech journalists, editors etc.
Czech and foreign media
Czech and foreign politicians
state institutions and civil servants
others

21. 1. Martin Veselovský (80%)
2. Jindřich Šídlo (80%)
3. Erik Tabery (68%)
4. Andrej Babiš (65%)
5. Filip Horký (64%)
6. Alexandr Mitrofanov (62%)
7. Robert Čásenský (62%)
8. Filip Rožánek (60%)
9. ČT24 (59%)
10. Médiář (58%)
11. Bohuslav Sobotka (58%)
12. Michal Kubal (58%)
13. Miloš Čermák (58%)
14. DVTV (58%)
15. František Lutonský (57%)
16. Jiří Hošek (56%)
17. Týdeník Respekt (56%)
18. Petr Honzejk (55%)
19. Miroslav Kalousek (54%)
20. Josef Šlerka (54%)

22. 1. Martin Veselovský (80%)
2. Jindřich Šídlo (80%)
3. Erik Tabery (68%)
4. Andrej Babiš (65%)
5. Filip Horký (64%)
6. Alexandr Mitrofanov (62%)
7. Robert Čásenský (62%)
8. Filip Rožánek (60%)
9. ČT24 (59%)
10. Médiář (58%)
11. Bohuslav Sobotka (58%)
12. Michal Kubal (58%)
13. Miloš Čermák (58%)
14. DVTV (58%)
15. František Lutonský (57%)
16. Jiří Hošek (56%)
17. Týdeník Respekt (56%)
18. Petr Honzejk (55%)
19. Miroslav Kalousek (54%)
20. Josef Šlerka (54%)

23. 1. Martin Veselovský (80%)
2. Jindřich Šídlo (80%)
3. Erik Tabery (68%)
4. Andrej Babiš (65%)
5. Filip Horký (64%)
6. Alexandr Mitrofanov (62%)
7. Robert Čásenský (62%)
8. Filip Rožánek (60%)
9. ČT24 (59%)
10. Médiář (58%)
11. Bohuslav Sobotka (58%)
12. Michal Kubal (58%)
13. Miloš Čermák (58%)
14. DVTV (58%)
15. František Lutonský (57%)
16. Jiří Hošek (56%)
17. Týdeník Respekt (56%)
18. Petr Honzejk (55%)
19. Miroslav Kalousek (54%)
20. Josef Šlerka (54%)

24. Foreign media
BBC Breaking News
CNN Breaking News
Reuters Top News
The Economist
The New York Times

25. Conclusion
Strong similarity in followed accounts. Strong
orientation rather inside the group than outside. Few
external actors.
There is practically no voice of other political
orientation than the center-right and liberal.

26. Limitations
Biased dataset
Unknown role of the Twitter recommendation algorithm

27. Thnx
@josefslerka, @petrkou
josef.slerka@ff.cuni.cz, petr.koubsky@ff.cuni.cz