Discursive Fields and Intra-party Influence in Colombian Politics
General Material Designation
[Thesis]
First Statement of Responsibility
Cornell, Devin J.
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
Charles, MariaMohr, John W.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2019
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Body granting the degree
Charles, MariaMohr, John W.
Text preceding or following the note
2019
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
When are politicians influential in shifting party discourse? This study explores how same-party politicians influence one another, and how this influence leads to changes to a party's larger discourse. I suggest that the extent to which politicians are able to influence other party politicians depends on how their messages situate them within the party's discursive field. I further suggest that certain messages are particularly influential when distinctive within a given time period. To assess this effect, I use a case study of just under 1 million Tweets from politicians in the Colombian political party Centro Democrático from 2015-2017. I use topic modeling and network analysis to measure influence within a dynamic discursive field, and a genetic learning algorithm to identify types of messages, as topics, which constitute the field under which we observe the strongest linkage between field position and influence. I find that politicians are influential when posting about current events and when creating symbolic distinctions which are central to the party ideology - in the case of Centro Democrático, distinctions between the concept of peace itself and the peace process developing in Colombia. These results suggest that the discursive field can be a powerful tool for analysis of influence and political discourse.