Bridges (edges) and bridging nodes (vertices) in a network are essential in connecting cliques, moderating the debate and introducing new ideas and innovations and filling structural holes in a network (ref. Ronald S. Burt).

 

When you separate vertices in groups in NodeXL (figure), several columns are added to your “edges” sheet, mainly “Vertex 1 Group” and “Vertex 2 Group”

Refreshing the graph using the “lay out each of the graph’s groups in its own box” (figure)

return a graph where nodes/vertices are separated into groups, each painted in a different color:

Finding edges with high centrality or degree is straightforward in NodeXL but, what if you wanted to find the bridges between groups? people who are transporting/propagating the debate/discussion from one clique to the other?

First, we need to determine the bridging edges between groups:

• In the Edges vertices, add a column “Bridging” and type the following formula: =IF([@[Vertex 1 Group]]<>[@[Vertex 2 Group]],1,0). This formula should return 1 if the the group of Vertex 1 is different from the group of Vertex 2 (“vertex 1 group” and “vertex 2 group” columns)
• Hide the edges that do not traverse groups but adding the following formula in the “visibility” column in the “edges” sheet: =IF([@Bridging]=1,”Show”,”Hide”)

If you refresh the graph now, it should look like this:

It is still confusing but most edges have disappeared. Next step is to hide the vertices that are no longer connected to any other vertex (technically, the vertices that do not bridge with other vertices in other groups or cliques):

In the “Vertices” sheet, add a new column, “bridge”. We need to count/sum all the bridging edges where this vertex is connected (left or right). The formula to add in the “bridge” column is: =SUMIF(Edges[Vertex 1],[@Vertex],Edges[Bridging])+SUMIF(Edges[Vertex 2],[@Vertex],Edges[Bridging])

the formula in simple English: Sum the values in the Bridging column only if  the Vertex 1 column in the Edges table contains the name of the current vertex. Do the same if the name of the current vertex is in the vertex 2 column.

A value of zero means that the vertex is not a bridging node. The higher the value, the higher the number of connections of this vertex to people outside its group or circle of friends:

The last step is to hide the non-bridging vertices. In the Visibility column of the vertices sheet, type the following formula: =IF([@Bridge]=0,”Hide”,”Show”)

You can also use “Skip” instead of “Hide” to exclude the non-bridging vertices from future calculations (need recalculation).

To display the names of the vertices, in the “Label” column, type =[@Vertex]

In the image below, for aesthetic purposes, I hid all the bridging nodes that have less than ten connections with other groups (=IF([@Bridge]<10,”Hide”,”Show”) in the Visibility column of the vertices sheet instead of =IF([@Bridge]=0,”Hide”,”Show”):

In a glimpse, we can now see that “canal plus”, “cannes festival”, “nadine labaki”, “sony classics”, etc., have helped disseminate the information to ten groups or more.

The sheet used for this post can be downloaded here.

 

  On Nov. 5, 2017, after the resignation of Prime Minister Saad el Hariri on TV from KSA, the trending hashtag in Lebanon was #استقالة_سعد_الحريري (the resignation of Saad Hariri). The discussion on Twitter was revolving around the “What” happened. The day after, the discussion, on the contrary, was focused on the “How” it happened, mainly a new hashtag #الاقامة_الجبرية or “house arrest” (forced residence). This shift in perspective is quite interesting from a political point of view because it automatically negates the effects and reasons for the resignation, and even the resignation itself. We ask ourselves how did this really happen on Twitter? Based on a sample of 6,867 tweets all containing the “house arrest” hashtag, we conclude the following:

• The hashtag was initially launched by ArabTimes and MBNsaudi pertaining to the arrest of several princes in KSA, not including Saad Hariri
• The hashtag was reetweeted and “owned” by Wiam Wahab who was, in turn, mentioned, retweet and commented 270 times.
• Another interesting trending Tweet (161 engagements) is the one that was launched by Charbel Khalil, asking Saad Hariri to take a selfie anywhere outside his residence in KSA to prove he’s not detained.

 

The Sample

The following analysis is based on a sample of 11,919 tweets extracted using Twitter’s API. The search term for this sample is  #سنة_من_عمر_وطن  which is the  “one year from a country’s life” hashtag launched by the President’s movement(s). Twitter’s Search API is focused on relevance and not completeness. This means that some Tweets and users may be missing from search results. Unfortunately, it is not easy to determine the total number of tweets for this hashtag. However, we can roughly estimate this number to be between 20 to 30% of the total number of tweets for this hashtag.

 

Tweets have been grouped by cluster using the Clauset-Newman-Moore algorithm using NodeXL.

Almost Complete Absence of the March 14 Component

The most noticeable aspect of the discussion is the almost total absence of politicians of March 14. Saad Hariri was mentioned by some users but did not tweet himself (as least in our representative sample). Samir Geagea and Walid Joumblatt did not appear in the sample.

 

In fact, we double-checked Samir Geagea’s profile, and it looks like he never tweeted regarding the end of the first year of the presidency.

 

Only a very small group of people (9 users in our sample) attacked the regime and its relation with Hezbollah. Two other groups of 20 users (total) sarcastically commented on the President’s answers to the journalists.

 

The logical explanation for this behavior is the extreme polarization of the Lebanese society. In such cases of strong polarization, people from politically competing groups don’t use the same hashtags or join the discussion. This explains their almost total absence.

 

The Overwhelming Joy of Followers

The hashtag was launched by the pro-President movement. It is therefore logical to have an overwhelming presence of pro-President users tweeting and using the hashtag.

 

Pro-President users are not however a tight crowd, i.e. a close community. The largest group of tweeters is 493 users tweeting 2056 times. This group does not include a notable politician, not even the President.

 

A dismantled community

The fact that the largest pro-Aounists group of tweeters is leaderless could be interpreted as a symptom of leadership crisis.

 

This is also shown in the  way pro-President groups are divided:

• A leaderless group (493 users, 2056 tweets)
• A President-Bassil-Kanaan-Jamil el Sayyed group (96 users, 269 tweets)
• The official account for the Presidency (77 users, 125 tweets)
• An Alain Aoun group (57 users, 69 tweets)

While many bridges connect the Kanaan-Bassil-Sayyed group (Kanaan being the most retweeted) to the main group of fans, the connections between this group and the Alain Aoun group are almost non-existant (5 in total).

 

Part of the Pro-President group is discussing with the Kanaan group (224 incoming connections and 142 outgoing connections) while other users from this group are discussing with Alain Aoun (52 connections and 35 outgoing connections). An explanation would be that, while the President’s fans are all happy with the “successes” of the first year of presidency, they look divided in terms of affiliation.

Hezbollah’s Support

It is rare not to see Hezbollah’s fans join political discussions on Twitter. In the case of the presidency’s hashtag, we notice some very strong support from Hezbollah’s users with tweets about the alliance between President Aoun and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

 

The Importance of the Role of Mr. Gebran Bassil

While the discussion was primarily centered around the presidency, it is important to mention that a discussion about the positive role (as a supporter of the Hezbollah) and another one about the negative role of Gebran Bassil (corruption) was taking place.

 

Even though only a few users discussed the role of Mr. Gebran Bassil, this shows that he is a major concern (positive or negative) to many citizen.

 

Suleiman Frangieh Supporters

Finally, the most important aspect of the debate is probably the fact that the second largest clique in the discussion is a group with several discussion “mayors”, the most important two being Suleiman Frangieh supporters, Sleiman Frangieh (note that this is a different Suleiman Frangieh – @avsl_frangieh) and Georges Bou Nassif (@georgesbnassif). These users challenge the so called “success” by asking “which country are you talking about?”

Independents and Journalists, like Mariam al Bassam (New TV) and Yazbeck Wehbé (LBC), are also part of the debate against the “happy ones”.

The absence or at least very small involvement of people from the Future Movement, the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb is noticeable.

 

As a result, we suggest that the real skirmish today is between the President’s supporters and Mr. Suleiman Frangieh’s supporters, while other Christians and ex-14 March groups are taking a distant neutral and silent stance from the joy or the frustrations of the first year of Presidency.