Star Network Motifs on X during COVID-19

TL;DR

This paper analyzes star network motifs on X during COVID-19, revealing patterns of social communication among bots and humans that inform social media behavioral analysis.

Contribution

It identifies and characterizes six primary star network motifs involving bots and humans during COVID-19 discourse.

Findings

Six primary star motif patterns identified

Differences between bot and human participation in motifs

Motif patterns inform social media behavior analysis

Abstract

Social network motifs are recurring patterns of small subgraphs that indicate fundamental patterns of social communication. In this work, we study the simple star network motifs that recur on X during the COVID-19 discourse. We study the profile of the manifestation of the star network among bot and human users. There are six primary patterns of the star motif, differentiating by the bots and humans being either egos and alters. We describe the presentation of each of these six patterns in our data, demonstrating how the motif patterns can inform social media behavioral analysis.