Petri Leskinen | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Parliamentary mention networks reflect the organisation and dynamics of Finnish political discourse

The primary purpose of the parliamentary discussion is to present and debate legislative drafts. Mentions of other Members of the Parliament (MPs) and interruptions of them represent the structure of the political discourse. Name mentions can be automatically recognised in speech transcripts and linked to the relevant MPs. We construct networks of MPs based on name mentions in 96753 speeches delivered during the electoral terms 2015-2018 and 2019-2022 in the Finnish Parliament to study the structures of interaction within parliamentary discussion. The results show that the networks are not polarized, although there is slight bias towards mentioning one's own party members. Activity on the parliamentary floor, political seniority and minister status have a positive correlation with higher centrality scores of MPs. Our analysis is generalizable to different political arenas and is an interesting basis for comparison across regional assemblies or countries.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

Communication Now and Then: Analyzing the Republic of Letters as a Communication Network

Huge advances in understanding patterns of human communication, and the underlying social networks where it takes place, have been made recently using massive automatically recorded data sets from digital communication, such as emails and phone calls. However, it is not clear to what extent these results on human behaviour are artefacts of contemporary communication technology and culture and if the fundamental patterns in communication have changed over history. This paper presents an analysis of historical epistolary metadata with the aim of comparing the underlying historical communication patterns with those of contemporary communication. Our work uses a new epistolary dataset containing metadata on over 150 000 letters sent between the 16th and 19th centuries. The analyses indicate striking resemblances between contemporary and epistolary communication network patterns, including dyadic interactions and ego-level behaviour. Despite these positive findings, certain aspects of the letter datasets are insufficient to corroborate other similarities or differences for these communication networks.

physics.soc-ph↗