The role of key actors in relation to discourse in a microblogging hashtag stream

Purpose This study aims to examine the role of key network actors in relation to the discourse structure of a microblogging hashtag stream within a global agricultural educators’ conference over two years. Prior work in online networks suggests that participation is dominated by highly active members, and in this study, the authors focus on examining what types of discourse are shared and reshared by key actors. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a combination of social network analyses and qualitative discourse coding to examine approximately 1,390 posts associated with the conference hashtag over two consecutive years. Findings The study analyses uncovered a set of common key participants over both years and common types of discourse used by those key participants. Key participants took on roles of resharing messages and contributed to discourse by retweeting posts that highlighted participants’ thoughts and feelings related to the conference and the discipline. Research limitations/implications This research has implications for encouraging diverse participants and diverse discourses related to key community goals. Design suggestions include identifying and inviting key actors as collaborators to reshare discourse that clearly aligns with community goals and using smaller hashtag spaces to encourage broader participation. Originality/value Prior work on microblogging has highlighted either the types of discourse and information sharing or the structures of the network interactions within conference hashtag streams. This study builds on this prior work and combines discourse and structure to understand the ways in which key network figures reshare discourse within the community, a facet that has been underreported in the literature.