Existing Social Movement Theory research is filled with analyses of the network structures of social movement organizations, but thus far has failed to address a new environment for these networks: social media. Twitter has become a significant platform through which social movement organizations grow, but existing literature has yet to provide an in-depth analysis of how these structures evolve. This paper is the first step to understanding the digital structure of SMO networks, and how these structures impact the dissemination of the organization's message. More specifically, this paper determines the network structure by parsing and recording twitter connections of different SMOs and applying computational methods from social network analysis. An in-depth description of the structural similarities and differences will then facilitate a greater understanding of processes inside each organization.
