Social Services and Twitter: Analysis of Socio-Political Discourse in Spain from 2015 to 2019

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article "Social Services and Twitter: analysis of socio-political discourse in Spain from 2015 to 2019" provides an analysis of Twitter messages related to the topic "social services". 

The paper is well readable and provides detailed historical information about the use and evolution of social networks. However, it lacks evidence, that supports the statements and a clear scientific foundation. The article seems to be written more or less for a non scientific audience. 

Therefore, i cannot recommend to publish it in the given version. 

 

In detail, i have the following comments: 

 

1. Introduction

This chapter is - compared to the others - quite lengthy. It is well written and informative, but at the end of this section, it should lead to

- a concrete problem statement

- a derived set of research questions

that are answered by this article. 

 

After the introduction, a section summarizing and introducing the "State of the Art in Science and Technology" should be added with references to methodologies for the analysis of social media, a description of the Gephi tool, information about how such an evaluation can be conducted, which metrics are employed, which formulae are required and how results can be interpreted. 

Further more, related work has to be outlined, e.g. from other topics, other countries, different algorithms / tools / approaches. 

 

2. Materials and Methods

How did you access the mentioned 6.728 tweets? Where and how is this data derived? This should be explained.

The author mentions a "methodological process", which should be outlined, described and visualized (line 230)

Information about the quantitative analysis (line 230) should be given and how the results are calculated.

 

3. Results

"information from a set of instruments..." > i think, this is the core foundation for this article. It has to be described, which instruments, which formulae, where data comes from, how it is aggregated, what Gephi does with it, and how results have to be interpreted.

Figure 1 is not readable, also not referenced or explained in the text. There should be additional images zooming into the graph structure and an explanation for the reader, what is visualized on them. 

When presenting results in a scientific way, the most important data has to be provided. I would suggest to add a table with the keywords, their occurences, the values after formulae applied, etc. You need to provide hard facts that can support your discussion. 

 

4. Discussion and 5. Conclusions

This section might be ok, when the results are provided. I will comment on this after a major revision. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all, I would like to thank you for your comments and review of the manuscript. Most of the changes you indicated and everything I could improve have been included. I hope you will comply with what you indicate.

This research has a lot of work behind it.

Thank you very much for everything.

Best regards,

Alfonso Chaves Montero

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The subject of the publication is related to the important problem of reconfiguration of political communication in the era of the Internet and new media. Technological changes are a challenge, as the author of the text rightly notes, in order to properly understand the socio-political discourse. The author of the article refers to quantitative analysis and uses the Gelphi tool. Indicates priority topics and networks of the profiles that actively participate on Twitter. The methodology is correct, and the research sample is representative. I have no objections to the choice of literature. The author consistently explains the goals of the work, describes the status quaestionis and, importantly, knows the realities of the election campaign in Spain in 2015-2018 and consistently achieves the goal, using selected research tools. The conceptual grid and structure of the text are correct. It seems to me that in the conclusion the author should indicate the importance of qualitative research as complementary to quantitative analysis. Moreover, it seems to me that it is worth returning to the classics, such as Aristotle's concept of topoi as a perspective supplementing quantitative research.

It is therefore worth pointing out, as a postulate for further research, the contemporary use of the category of topoi (natural and ideological topoi) in media and political science research. I suggest here (in Part 5 Conclusions) citing the works of James McCroskey, Terezia Roncakova, Rafal Lesniczak, Ruth Wodak:

McCroskey, J. C. (2015). An introduction to rhetorical communication. Routledge.

Rončáková, T. (2022). The image of Christian churches in the Slovak and Czech media during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Church, Communication and Culture, 7(1), 127-153.

Leśniczak, R. (2022). News coverage of Christian churches and other religious bodies dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic: An analysis of newspapers in German and English. Church, Communication and Culture, 7(1), 175-195.

Wodak, R., & Boukala, S. (2015). European identities and the revival of nationalism in the European Union: A discourse historical approach. Journal of language and politics, 14(1), 87-109.

In this way, research on political communication can be an important point of reflection also from the point of view of anthropology of communication or journalistic deontology (cf. works by Luka Brajnovic).

I also propose a more detailed discussion of the election campaign in Spain in the context of the article (what exactly the author is interested in and what is not interested in this election campaign). Are the issues of personalization important, or maybe the category of negativism as a factor in the selection of information? Unfortunately, the keywords in the diagram on page 6 are illegible - please correct in the final version.

I recommend the work for publication.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

First of all, I would like to thank you for your comments and review of the manuscript. The new references you recommended and some questions about the election campaign have been included.

This research has a lot of work behind it.

Thank you very much for everything.

Best regards,

Alfonso Chaves Montero

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

 

thank you for your reworked paper. 

 

I have the following comments / suggestions for the current version: 

 

Abstract

- the abstract is a bit short and does not include the results given in the paper. What does "this new digital environment" refer to? I would recommend to start the second sentence like "In this paper, a sample of 6,728 tweets...". 

 

Introduction

- please add the reference for "unitary digital agora" directly after the citation

- when phrasing "in the words of... ", you should name the author(s). If you just say "according to", the reference is enough

- references for third paragraph "The presence in social..." are missing

- page 2, 3rd paragraph: you mention "this Big Data processing", however it is not clear, what "this" refers to. 

- page 2, last paragraph: "This use of ICT" - please mention the long version / meaning of ICT once and introduce its meaning to the readers

- page 3, 1st paragraph: "Web 4.0" should be referenced. However, it is not clear to me, why you need it in the context of your paper

- page 3, last paragraph: introduce CIS + reference

- page 3, last paragraph: "We can say" -> "It can be stated"

- page 4, 1st paragraph: you should mention, that Obama, Trump and Clinton refer to the US-campaign and not to your problem domain (i.e., Spain)

- page 4: after the 2nd paragraph, you should clearly state your problem statements and the corresponding research questions, you address with this paper. The section about Gephi should go into materials and methods.

- page 4, 4th paragraph: don't start with "Yes, "... in general, this section should not be in the introduction. It seems more or less like a summary of further ideas or future work and should go to the end of the paper. At the end of this section you say "these related Studies", however no references have been given or the results of the related studies have been introduced. 

- page 5, add reference to Gephi

- page 5, last paragraph: rephrase the first sentence of 3. Results

- page 6, refer to Figure 1 in the text and provide an explanation of what is shown in the Figure

- page 7, 3rd paragraph: where do the numbers come from? They are not supported by the provided data. If this is part of the "Discussion", the results have to be provided beforehand. You can only discuss things, that have been presented.

- page 7 / 8 - for me it seems, that the discussion is more or less the presentation of some further results. However, it is not clear, how these figures have been calculated. Some more information about the experimental setup and outcome would be required to support the conclusions

- page 8, 5th paragraph: why are you starting with a question here? It is sufficient to provide the results / answers here.

- page 8: I don't understand, how the "conclusions" should be derived from the provided information. This should be made clear based on the provided data. For each conclusion, the relevant data has to be presented.

- page 8 / conclusions: currently, the conclusions are not supported by the evidence given in this paper. This section can be reviewed again, when further data is given. 

 

Best regards.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Thank you again for your reviews. I have made all your observations, but I do not agree with you regarding your comments on the conclusions, as the conclusions are a true reflection of the content of the messages generated on Twitter and the most important concerns that Twitter users and actors expressed.

I hope you can understand and consider this.

Thank you very much for everything.

Best regards.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The article can be published in the present form. However, I personally would recommend to add some more scientific elements and evidence. The authors mention "Big Data", but provide only one very small table. I would expect more data, more evidence, a stronger data basis to support the conclusions.