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Political hyperlinks in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Dr. Han Woo PARK

Visiting Research Fellow Oxford Internet Institute, UK

Associate ProfessorDepartment of Media & CommunicationYeungNam University214-1 Dae-dong, Gyeongsan-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do 712-749Republic of Koreahanpark@ynu.ac.krhttp://www.hanpark.net

A co-leader of WCU Project: Investigating Internet-based Politics with e-Research Tools.

Invited speech, Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK, 27 May, 2009

Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS)

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Three topics for today

• Is a hyper-linking socio-political or technical behavior?

• How different/similar are hyper-linking practices between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?

• What are advantages of massively-collected hyper-link data using search engines for political and elec-toral communication research?

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A comment from those who are NOT doing a link analysis

• In a chapter of The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods edited by Fielding et al. (2008), Horgan emphasizes that ‘link analysis’ has become an active research domain in examining social behavior online.

http://participatorysociety.org/wiki/index.php?title=Online_Research

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Part 1This part is based on

• Kim, H., & Park, H. W. (2007). Web sphere analysis for political websites: The 2004 national assembly election in South Korea. In Kluver, R., Jankowski, N., Foot, K., & Schneider, S. (Eds.). The internet and national elections: A comparative study of web campaigning. London: Routledge. pp. 226-239.

• Park, H. W., & Kluver, R. (2008). Affiliation in political blogs in South Korea: Comparing online and offline social networks. In Goggin, G., & McLelland, M. (Eds.). Internationalizing Internet Studies. London: Routledge. pp.252-263.

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How political are hyperlinks?

• Social roles of hyperlinks in Internet-mediated political communication (Foot & Schneider, 2006, Web campaigning)

• Informing• Involving• Connecting• Mobilizing

Link to central government (66 out of 77 links to Blue-House came from ruling party members)

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Connecting: Endorsement

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Connecting: Endorsement

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Mobilizing: Send a link to local friends who can vote

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Mobilizing: Send a link telling that this is a good homepage

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Mobilizing: Send a link sharing emotional support

South Korean and Japanese political

cultures: Same? Different?Relationships South Korea Japan

Party-politician Weak Leader has strong

influence on party

Weak/strong (major/ minor parties)

Mediated leader role

Political parties-public

Ideologically oriented (recently)

Two-party system

Ruling-opposition Emerging two-party

system

Politicians-public Increasingly transparent

Strong civil society

Increasingly transparent

Weak civil society Local support

Election regulations Strict (media, donations, and F2F)

Strict (media, timing, and distribution)

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Results (3a): Linking

* = sig. p<0.01

Linking strategies South Korean politicians (N=100)

Japanese politicians (N=100)

Own political party 89* 70*

Other political parties 4 4

Other politicians in the same party (national level)

3* 18*

Other politicians in the same party (local level)

0* 12*

Other politicians in a different party (national level)

0 0

Other politicians in a different party (national level)

0 0

Central government 52 38

Local governments 60 44

Local assemblies 8 3

Election-related government bodies 11 3

National assemblies 67* 37*

Parliamentary committees 11 4 14

Results (3b): Linking

* = sig. p<0.01

Linking strategies South Korean politicians (N=100)

Japanese politicians (N=100)

Broadcasters 3 6

Internet broadcasters 0* 27*

Newspapers 9 7

Internet newspapers 9 1

Civic & advocacy groups

37 23

Wireless sites 2* 15*

Blogs 57* 20*

International bodies 4 7

General public 3* 20*

Other 43 2815

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Part 2

This part has been newly prepared for this presentation us-ing the data of the following publications:

Park, H. W., Kim, C. S., & Barnett, G. A. (2004). Socio-communicational structure among political actors on the web in South Korea: The dynamics of digital presence in cyberspace, New Media & Society. 6(3), 403-423

Park, H. W., & Kluver, R. (2009 forthcoming). Trends in online networking among South Korean politicians-A mixed method approach. Government Information Quarterly.

* Regarding the National Assembly of South Korea, refer to Wikipedia’s entry

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Data collection for Web 1.0

• Official homepages of S. Korean MPs• Manual collection: Observation• Inter-linkage: Who links to whom ma-

trix• Explicit links excluding links in board• 2-Year tracking of same MPs: 2000-

2001

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Web type

s

Year Sum of

links(Mea

n)

Den-sity

Centralization(%)

In Out

Web 1.0

Home

page

2000N=24

5

373(1.52

)

0.006 1.84 69.33

2001 515(2.10

)

0.009 1.19 99.55

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Network map of 2000

Blue: GNP: Conservative: Opposi-tion

Red: MDP: Liberal: Ruling

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Network map of 2001

Star networks without any isolation

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Data modification

• Network metrics and diagrams can be heavily influenced by outliers

- 김홍신 (Kim) Outdegree: 170 in 2000-2001- 박원홍 (Park) Outdegree: 0 -> 244 (Outlier?)- 한승수 (Han) Outdegree: 0 -> 99 (Outlier?)

• Free to link, and they may not be outlier• Their sites might have been refurbished to

increase SEO(Search Engine Optimization)

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Web type

s

Year Sum of

links(Mea

n)

Den-sity

Centralization(%)

In Out

Web 1.0

Home

page

2000N=24

5

373(1.52

)

0.006 1.84 69.33

2001N=24

3

267(1.10

)

0.002 1.20 69.67

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Network map of 2001before VS after modifi-

cation

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2000 VS 2001 (after modification)

Blue: GNP: Conservative: Opposi-tion

Red: MDP: Liberal: Ruling

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Data collection for Web 2.0

• Personal blogs of S. Korean MPs• Manual collection: Observation• Blogroll links: Excluding links in post-

ings• Inter-linkage: Who links to whom ma-

trix• 2-Year tracking of same MPs: 2005-

2006• Phone interview about usage behav-

iors

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Web type

s

Year Sum of

links(Mea

n)

Den-sity

Centralization(%)

In Out

Web 2.0

Blog

2005N=9

9

652(6.59

)

0.067 22.07

41.66

2006 589(5.95

)

0.061 20.67

35.10

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2005 VS 2006

Blue: GNP: Conservative: Opposi-tion

Yellow: Uri: Liberal: RulingGreen: DLP: Progressive: Opposi-

tion

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Six-degree on blog?

• Mean and density values indicate that politicians have about 6 friends on blogrolls

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Web types

Year Sum of

links(Mea

n)

Den-sity

Centraliza-tion(%)

Note

In Out

Web 1.0

(Homepage)

2000N=245

373(1.52)

0.006 1.84 69.33 Hub but, over-all,

sparse net-work

2001 515(2.10)

0.009 1.19 99.55

Web 2.0

(Blog)

2005N=99

652(6.59)

0.067 22.07 41.66 Disap-pear-ing hub but

getting denser

2006 589(5.95)

0.061 20.67 35.10

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Types

Year Gini Characteristics

Web 1.0

(Home

page)

2000N=245

0.984 Sparse knittedHub-spike network

Winner-take-allNavigation-abilityWebsite interface

2001 0.996

Web 2.0

(Blog)

2005N=99

0.759 Fairly connectedBuffer-fly network

ParticipatoryHomophily-basedPersonal-tie inter-

face

2006 0.763

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To what degree do Korean National Assembly members update a blog?

Measurement item Answer Frequency Percent

Content-creating Activities

Rarely 5 11.4

Occasionally 6 13.6

About half 16 36.4

Frequently 5 11.4

Very Frequently 12 27.3

Hyperlinking activities

Rarely 2 4.5

Occasionally 4 9.1

About half 13 29.5

Frequently 7 15.9

Very Frequently 18 40.9

No answer 3 6.

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Part 3This part is based on

Park, H. W. and Lee, Y. (2008). The Korean Presidential Election of 2007: Five Years on from the “Internet Election”. Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia. 7 (1), 1-4.

Lee, Y.-O., & Park, H. W. (2010 forthcoming). The Reconfiguration of E-Campaign Practices in Korea: A Case Study of The Presidential Primaries of 2007. International Sociology.

Park, H. W. (2009, work-in-progress). How do social scientists use link data from search engines to understand Internet-based political and electoral communication.

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Background & Data collection

• The Internet represents a massive storehouse of social networking data, enabling researchers to capture political communications by individual officials, politicians, and activists.

• This is particularly true in South Korea, where political participants almost always have online representation.

• Hyper-linking maps are indicative of the relative level of public awareness and the ideological orientation of candidates and parties.

The 2007 presidential race within the opposition Grand National

Party• Profiles of candidates

– Two major candidates: Myung-Bak Lee and Geun-Hye Park

• MB Lee is ex-mayor of Seoul and ex-CEO of Hyundai

• GH Park is a daughter of ex-president Jeong-Hee Park

– Two minor candidates but the two major candidates were selected for this re-search

Difference between public opinion survey and actual turnout in GNP

primary • Contrary to public opin-

ion survey, Park ran neck-and-neck with Lee– Lee defeated Park only by

1.5% point (2,452 votes)– Furthermore, Park ob-

tained 423 votes more than Lee from delegates, party members, and in-vited non-partisan partic-ipants

http://gopkorea.blogs.com/south_korean_politics/

Affiliation network diagram using pages linked to Lee’s and Park’s sites

N = 901 (Lee: 215, Park: 692, Shared: 6)

Findings & Discussions

• Cyber-balkanization was observed.– Only a few webpages/sites are shared be-

tween the two campaign sites. – The campaign sites tend to attract links

from like-minded sites.

• The case study can be taken as an ‘evi-dence’ to show the existence of the theoretical correlation between the re-sult of this particular election and hy-perlink network analysis

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Data collection for the 2007 presidential election

• Co-(in)link analysis of the 20 websites of the candidates/parties using the Ya-hoo – Also web size, incoming links, visitor traffic

• Qualitative complements• Particularly usefulness: Public opinion

surveys could not be published within six days before the 2007 election

2 Dec 2007

Changes of co-link net-works during presidential campaign period

11 Dec 2007

17 Dec 2007D-2 day

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2 Dec 2007

11 Dec 2007

17 Dec 2007

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Network measures 2 Dec 07 11 Dec 2007 17 Dec 2007Clustering coefficient 2.581 2.368 1.777Average distance

(Cohesion value)

1.564

(0.215)

1.821

(0.273)

1.681

(0.346)Degree centralities

of sites

ijworld.or.kr

leehc.org

ckp.kr

0.158

0.000

0.000

0.263

0.053

0.053

0.684

0.263

0.053

Network Measures of Colink Networks with Three Different Points

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DiscussionsShould hyperlink data collection

be always conducted using (commercial) search engines?

How do we know the extent to which a search engine influ-ences/distorts research results? Is search engine value-free re-search tool?

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My answer is

• Science organizes, structures, and evaluates information to develop a systematic body of knowledge.

• It is up to the researcher to draw the appropriate conclusions, using his or her expertise, about the information gathered from the web using search engines.

• While search engines collect data from the entire web, finding the truth from the information is the business of academics

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The end

Thank you for listening, and thank you to my assis-tants

Han Woo Park, Ph.D.Email: hanpark@ynu.ac.krWebsite: www.hanpark.net

Partially supported by a Korea Research Foundation Grant