New Spaces-New Authorities? Gatekeepers, Information Flow, and Transnationality in Hyperlink Networks on Climate Change

As internet reconfigures the pathways in which political information is disseminated, it erodes the gatekeeping role of the media, who increasingly compete and selectively cooperate with new actors such as bloggers for their position in a networked public sphere. The present study builds on the notion of the ‘hybrid media system’ and examines (1) to what extent the media still hold a role as authorities in online issue networks vis-à-vis other actor types; (2) how the interplay between these actors and the media structure the political online space and affect the dissemination of topics; and (3) how online communication embeds national political spaces in transnational communication flows. We used a web-crawler with civil society actors from the UK in the area of climate change as starting points to generate hyperlink networks on a monthly base over a period of 30 months. Using manual coding and LDA topic modelling to capture the content of the websites, we employed temporal exponential random graph models (TERGMs) to examine which interaction patterns drive how the network structure evolves over time. The results show that the media’s status as authorities is strongly challenged by other actor types. At the same time, relationships between these different actors remain sparse, although bloggers in particular integrate the debate. And while including a substantial amount of actors from other countries, it is only specific relationships that significantly promote a transnational political space. Altogether, the results suggest a development towards a ‘hybrid information space’.