Table 3 Two dimensions of authority and definitions of four user types
From: How did Ebola information spread on twitter: broadcasting or viral spreading?
First, we defined two dimensions of authority to classify users into four categories (2 × 2): | |
|---|---|
a. Followee-follower ratio | The first dimension is the ratio of the number of followees to the number of followers. Users are classified as either ratio > 1 or ≤ 1. |
b. Retweeted-retweeting ratio | The second dimension is the ratio of the number of retweets received from others to the number of retweets the user posted. Users are classified as either ratio > 1 or ≤ 1. |
We expect that users, who have more followers than followees, should have more retweets by their own followers than they retweeting their followees’ tweets. Likewise, we expect that users, who have fewer followers than followees, should have fewer retweets by their own followers than they retweeting their followees’ tweets. | |
Therefore, according to the two dimensions, we defined four types of users: | |
a. Disseminators (also named as “Broadcasters” by Gonzalez-Bailon et al. [7] | followees ≤ followers & being retweeted ≤ retweeting |
b. Common users | followees > followers & being retweeted ≤ retweeting |
c. Influential users | followees ≤ followers & being retweeted > retweeting |
d. Hidden influential users | followees > followers & being retweeted > retweeting |