Who follows whom? : the role of geography and similarity in online attention networks / Alexi Quintana-Mathé, Zhen Guo, Nir Grinberg, David Lazer

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Quintana-Mathé, Alexi, author.

Guo, Zhen (Data scientist), author.

Grinberg, Nir, 1983- author.

Lazer, David, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in politics and communication

Cambridge elements. Elements in politics and communication, 2633-9897

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social media.

Social media and society.

social media.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026

Summary:

"Follower ties play a major role in many social media platforms, representing users' choices on what content to pay attention to. This Element examines the role of geography and similarity by gender, age, race, and partisanship with respect to attention in social media by studying the follower ties among 1.1 million Twitter accounts matched to U.S. voter records. We find that geographic proximity is the dominant predictor of follower ties, and that demographic similarity by age and race/ethnicity are quite important. Surprisingly, given the prominence of political polarization in the contemporary US, partisanship plays a relatively minor role. In addition, our results indicate that the tendency to follow nearby users leads to following users of the same race/ethnicity and partisanship. Our findings highlight the enduring significance of physical geography in virtual spaces and that political preference is not a dominant determinant of online attention in social media"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

Attention networks, homophily, and geography

Studying attention networks

The role of demographics and partisanship

How does geography structure follower ties?

Multivariate analysis

Discussion and conclusions

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed June 1, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Quintana-Mathé, Alexi Who follows whom?

ISBN:

9781009695923

1009695924

9781009695916

1009695916

OCLC:

1585500497

Publisher Number:

CIPO000365848

CIPO000381791

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license