Are you connected? Evaluating information cascades in online discussion about the #RaceTogether campaign

In the context of online discussion about the recent Starbucks' “Race Together” cup campaign, this study aims to explore the central users in the online discussion network on Twitter and the factors contributing to a user's central status in the network. A social network analysis of 18,000 unique tweets comprising 26,539 edges and 14,343 Twitter users indicated five types of central users: conversation starter, influencer, active engager, network builder, and information bridge. Moreover, path analysis revealed that the number of people a Twitter user follows, the number of followers a user has, and the number of tweets a user generates within a time period helped a user increase his/her “indegree” connections in the network, which, together with one's “out-degree” connections in the network, propelled a user to become a central figure in the network.