Social Network Analysis of Information Flow and Opinion Formation on Indonesian Social Media: A Case Study of Youth Violence

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting study that helps clarify how public opinion around youth violence is generated on social media. The identification of key clusters and their interactions is valuable, and the use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to map the diffusion of information is a sound methodological approach. Furthermore, the discussion is well-linked to theoretical frameworks, which helps us understand how digital conversations evolve in response to media-covered cases.

I have made some comments in the manuscript, which I summarize below

Although the article describes the general themes discussed by the clusters, it does not present examples of the most viral tweets. This is a significant limitation, as it does not allow for a visualization of which narratives were most influential and which messages had the greatest impact on public conversation.
The study focuses solely on the Mario Dandy case, which may not be sufficient to generalize how public opinion is formed on youth violence in Indonesia. This case involves people with power and influence, which can generate a different reaction than those affecting ordinary citizens. To avoid overgeneralization, the study should compare this case with similar ones.

No justification for analyzing Twitter (X): The We Are Social report, cited in the theoretical framework, notes that Twitter is not the most used social media platform by young people in Indonesia. Given that Instagram and TikTok have a greater reach, the study should justify why Twitter is relevant.

On the other hand, although the study mentions the use of hashtags, it doesn't identify the most frequently used hashtags in the conversation. This is essential for analyzing how the topic's dissemination was organized and whether there were deliberate strategies to promote certain narratives. It also doesn't detail how bots were detected. In a case involving a powerful figure, it's possible that digital manipulation campaigns were carried out, so it would be relevant to analyze whether there were abnormal spikes in activity or participation from suspicious accounts.
I also miss greater context about the evolution of the case, what happened, and how it evolved in order to highlight its evolution in social conversation.
In the tweet search methodology, and given that the study collected tweets about a specific case, it is necessary to explain what search terms were used, how the data was filtered, and whether other cases were considered. This would make the analysis clearer and more replicable.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript. Your insightful comments and constructive feedback have been invaluable in refining and enhancing the quality of our work.

We have carefully incorporated your suggestions into the revised manuscript, with the inputs from Reviewer 1 highlighted in blue, Reviewer 2 in yellow, and Reviewer 3 in green for clarity. Your expertise has significantly contributed to improving the depth and rigor of this article.

Once again, thank you for your invaluable contributions. We truly appreciate your support and guidance in this process.

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall

This article is an in-depth examination of the characteristics of the conversation on social media platform Twitter/X of a particular incident of youth violence in Indonesia that was widely posted and discussed online. The authors use social network analysis to analyze a sizable amount of social media posts and describe the main clusters of conversation and their characteristics. Using a background of network society and information flows theories from in particular Castells & Van Dijck, the authors do a thorough investigation of this incident and draw conclusions about the shaping of public discourse around youth violence in Indonesian social media. The article will be useful to scholars studying both the Indonesian context specifically, as well as an example of methodology and comparison to other similar incidents in other contexts. Overall this work is very thorough, but could benefit from narrative expansion in the places where the writing is heavily “listy”. 

Introduction

The article would benefit from a longer discussion of what the Mario Dandy case is earlier on in the piece. This will help contextualize the analysis both for readers from outside of Indonesia who may be less familiar with the event, as well as give the article increased longevity - as social media moves quickly, an expanded explanation of the case will help future readers in years to come be able to understand and then apply the results of this study to future research when this case has faded from cultural memory. Potentially this could be done: 

• At the end of the first introductory section (page 3, line 94) 

The literature review is well done, the explanations of Castells, van Dijck, and boyd (1.1) in particular do a great job of providing intellectual context for the article and the conclusions the authors present. The contextualization of the Indonesian and wider Southeast Asian context (1.3) also do a lot to orient readers and scholars of social media and youth in other contexts. 

Materials & Methods

The methodology section is very detailed, and provides a depth of understanding of how the study was completed and will allow scholars to apply similar methods to their own research. 

I would ask the authors if there is a way to rearrange their discussion of the systematic steps of the cleaning, filtering, network analysis, visualization, and validation processes in a way that is not just a point form list. It reads as unfinished and does not provide rationale for why the certain steps were taken. 

Results

This section is again, well done and detailed. But I would make the following suggestions: 

• The first time any terms are introduced, explain what they are. For example, the definition of “activities” is not expanded upon until the following paragraph. A short list of what counts as activities in parenthesis following its first mention would be helpful. 
• The explanation of the clusters begins before the event is explained fully, which leaves readers to piece together what the event was through an in-progress conversation about the clusters. For example, we hear about the “Pro-David cluster” before knowing who David is or what his role in the incident was. I would suggest explaining the case more fully either at the beginning of the results section on p. 8 or earlier in the introduction on p.3. 

Again, it would be great if there was some way to rearrange the way the findings section to avoid it just being a point form list of characteristics. Perhaps a table of some of the main characteristics followed by a more narrative discussion of the results for each cluster? 

Discussion

The discussion is well tied-in to the theoretical background from the beginning of the piece, which is well done and does a good job of situating the discussion. 

• For example, in 4.3 it would be good to see more of the data/clusters brought in to the discussion of the initial/middle/advanced phases, this could also include discussion of the long window of data collection (months) in regards to the advanced phase being more than 72 hours. Does that categorization still make sense? Did you observe differences between tweets from 72 hours afterwards and tweets from two months, for example.

Again, this section is listy and feels unfinished. I would like to see more explanation of what the different statements in the lists really mean, in a more narrative format. Part of communicating research is telling a story with the data, rather than just listing observations - in short, so what? Where the paper is strongest is in the places where the authors describe their findings and the importance of them, I would like to see more of that and fewer lists of observations. 

Conclusions

The conclusions and limitations are well discussed and provide excellent information for readers, and scholars wanting to extend the research or replicate a study with similar methods. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript. Your insightful comments and constructive feedback have been invaluable in refining and enhancing the quality of our work.

We have carefully incorporated your suggestions into the revised manuscript, with the inputs from Reviewer 1 highlighted in blue, Reviewer 2 in yellow, and Reviewer 3 in green for clarity. Your expertise has significantly contributed to improving the depth and rigor of this article.

Once again, thank you for your invaluable contributions. We truly appreciate your support and guidance in this process.

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

An excellent article and research, way above the usual academic papers. The empirical background combined with the research will definitely attract lots of interest. Although some suggestions are made by the peer reviewer, to make the article even more solid.

1. Change Boyd's name to capital letters. Although it is written as boyd in the original paper, it should be a mistake. Changing it to capital letters could strenghten the coherence of the references (lines: 105, 828, 873, 1099)
2. Some desctiption for cyberbullying could come handy for readers not so familiar with the topic as the Authors. Cyberbulling is an umbrella term and could take several forms. Clarifying that and some reference to the academic literature could add more depth to the article.
3. In lines 118-122, I strongly suggest to connect that section to censorship and content moderation as this could make your idea more robust. An excellent and recent work in that field could be a great add-on: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-46529-1
4. You use Wardle's information disorder article several times, but I suggest to use the newest one also, as she reconsidered some of the original ideas: https://issues.org/misunderstanding-misinformation-wardle/
5. In section 1.4, there are several repeats from earlier sections (Wardle, Castells, etc.), try avoiding that.
6. In lines 253-261, I really missed one aspect: the legal one. Legal solutions also affect strongly anything on the internet and what you wrote about. Addig this, could help the readers.
7. In line 276 there should be a reasoning why you chose X. As you state later, this is a strong limitation (line 1009), so some earlier reasoning could help avoiding that.
8. A short introduction of the Mario Dandy case could come handy, as most of your readers won't be as familiar with that, as the Authors are.
9. For the platform society concept, I suggest to add Gowder's book, the Networked Leviathan (https://networked-leviathan.com/) as this perfectly complement your ideas.

This holistic and comprehensive article was fun to read! Peer reviewer is sure that lost of other research will be based on this and hopes that you would use the suggestions above.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript. Your insightful comments and constructive feedback have been invaluable in refining and enhancing the quality of our work.

We have carefully incorporated your suggestions into the revised manuscript, with the inputs from Reviewer 1 highlighted in blue, Reviewer 2 in yellow, and Reviewer 3 in green for clarity. Your expertise has significantly contributed to improving the depth and rigor of this article.

Once again, thank you for your invaluable contributions. We truly appreciate your support and guidance in this process.

Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your revisions, your changes and explanations for them address all of my previous concerns.