IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v10y2021i10p357-d644015.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hybrid Intelligence Strategies for Identifying, Classifying and Analyzing Political Bots

Author

Listed:
  • Berta García-Orosa

    (Department of Communication Sciences, Universidad de Santiago, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

  • Pablo Gamallo

    (Centro de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

  • Patricia Martín-Rodilla

    (Information Retrieval Lab, Centro de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información e as Comunicacións (CITIC), Universidade da Coruña, Campus de Elviña s/n CP, 15071 A Coruña, Spain)

  • Rodrigo Martínez-Castaño

    (Centro de Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

Abstract

Political bots, through astroturfing and other strategies, have become important players in recent elections in several countries. This study aims to provide researchers and the citizenry with the necessary knowledge to design strategies to identify bots and counteract what international organizations have deemed bots’ harmful effects on democracy and, simultaneously, improve automatic detection of them. This study is based on two innovative methodological approaches: (1) dealing with bots using hybrid intelligence (HI), a multidisciplinary perspective that combines artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, political science, and communication science, and (2) applying framing theory to political bots. This paper contributes to the literature in the field by (a) applying framing to the analysis of political bots, (b) defining characteristics to identify signs of automation in Spanish, (c) building a Spanish-language bot database, (d) developing a specific classifier for Spanish-language accounts, (e) using HI to detect bots, and (f) developing tools that enable the everyday citizen to identify political bots through framing.

Suggested Citation

  • Berta García-Orosa & Pablo Gamallo & Patricia Martín-Rodilla & Rodrigo Martínez-Castaño, 2021. "Hybrid Intelligence Strategies for Identifying, Classifying and Analyzing Political Bots," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:10:p:357-:d:644015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/10/357/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/10/357/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimo Anelli & Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2019. "We Were The Robots: Automation and Voting Behavior in Western Europe," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1917, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    2. Carl Benedikt Frey & Thor Berger & Chinchih Chen, 2018. "Political machinery: did robots swing the 2016 US presidential election?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 34(3), pages 418-442.
    3. Chong, Dennis & Druckman, James N., 2007. "Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(4), pages 637-655, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    2. Nikolas Schöll & Thomas Kurer, 2021. "How Technological Change Affects Regional Electorates," Working Papers 1269, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. Colantone, Italo & Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Stanig, Piero, 2021. "The backlash of globalization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113860, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Nicole Wu, 2023. "“Restrict foreigners, not robots”: Partisan responses to automation threat," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 505-528, July.
    5. Gallego, Aina & Kurer, Thomas & Schöll, Nikolas, 2020. "Neither Left-Behind nor Superstar: Ordinary Winners of Digitalization at the Ballot," SocArXiv mu3tw, Center for Open Science.
    6. Golin, M. & Rauh, C., 2022. "The Impact of Fear of Automation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2269, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    7. Italo Colantone & Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Piero Stanig, 2021. "The Backlash of Globalization," CESifo Working Paper Series 9289, CESifo.
    8. Robert Gold, 2022. "From a better understanding of the drivers of populism to a new political agenda," Working Papers 4, Forum New Economy.
    9. Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2019. "The Surge of Economic Nationalism in Western Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 128-151, Fall.
    10. Karim Bekhtiar, 2023. "The decline of manufacturing employment and the rise of the far-right in Austria," Economics working papers 2023-09, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    11. Dennis C. Hutschenreiter & Tommaso Santini & Eugenia Vella, 2022. "Automation and sectoral reallocation," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 335-362, May.
    12. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    13. Midha, Joshua, 2022. "The Cycle of Rule: Existential Risks, Continuity Of Governance, And Conflict-Based Preservation," SocArXiv vc7w9, Center for Open Science.
    14. Fung, Timothy K.F. & Choi, Doo Hun & Scheufele, Dietram A. & Shaw, Bret R., 2014. "Public opinion about biofuels: The interplay between party identification and risk/benefit perception," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 344-355.
    15. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Matt Taddy, 2019. "Measuring Group Differences in High‐Dimensional Choices: Method and Application to Congressional Speech," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1307-1340, July.
    16. Gabriele Gratton & Barton E Lee, 2024. "Liberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(1), pages 340-371.
    17. Victor Ginsburgh & Sergio Perelman & Pierre Pestieau, 2021. "Populism and Social Polarization in European Democracies [Bien-Être et Vote]," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 67(4), pages 371-404.
    18. Bloemraad, Irene & Voss, Kim & Silva, Fabiana, 2014. "Framing the Immigrant Movement as about Rights, Family, or Economics: Which Appeals Resonate and for Whom?," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt3b32w33p, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    19. Stephen Drinkwater, 2021. "Brexit and the ‘left behind’: Job polarization and the rise in support for leaving the European Union," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(6), pages 569-588, November.
    20. Jeffrey, Karen, 2020. "Automation and the Future of Work: How Rhetoric Shapes the Response in Policy Preferences," SocArXiv beqra, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:10:p:357-:d:644015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.