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This part of the analysis explores the evolution of the reference networks between actors during January, February, March, April and May. This is based on a dual analysis of the networks: those networks that explore the structure of the political actor-referencing strategies and the active practices used by parties and actors to position themselves in relation to others; and the media structure of references or the structure of media positions, which is the result of the set of references that are made by other actors and give a position of value.
This aims to compare two conflicts that arise between the main political actors. The initial conflict (central graph) derived from the active strategy of some actors against others, i.e. the actors that other actors decide to mention or not. [9] The initial hypothesis is that this orientation of the discourse is related to a macro-social conflict, in this case represented by the impeachment of Fernando Lugo, and the various positions for or against it. And, secondly, the ad hoc media conflict (left graph) derived from the reception of references by other political actors [10], which is something that the actors cannot control and inserts them into a common group of name references. [11]
As a result, we aim to determine whether the location of the different actors in the news media responds to an initial active position or an active strategy of references and positions towards the coup, or whether, on the contrary, this media location takes a different form in relation to such a strategy.
In the first month of analysis, January, we detected the concentration of the group opposing the coup (in red) around the most important actors, Avanza País and Mario Ferreiro [12], in terms of references to themselves, while another important actor like Fernando Lugo was disconnected. The first point to highlight is that this position denotes a differentiation between the two actors of importance in the electoral period (Fernando Lugo, as the deposed President, and Mario Ferreiro as the presidential candidate of an opposition block), since they did not receive references or made references to the same actors, and are therefore in different spaces. Mario Ferreiro was positioned next to Horacio Cartes, Efraín Alegre [13] (as electoral adversaries) and the PLRA, while Fernando Lugo was close to the ANR-CP and the PLRA and was far from the presidential candidates. However, the PLRA node made them belong to the same community, insofar as they belonged to the periphery of the PLRA, and were therefore subordinated to it.
However, the most important actors of reference are those linked to a favourable position towards the coup, such as Horacio Cartes (presidential candidate of the ANR-PC), the ANR-PC, the PLRA, and Efraín Alegre, both with high “out-degrees”. These actors are also positioned together, which indicates that the debate is centred on them.
Comparing this to the graph of references (on the left) we can see a different form. First, the actors opposing the impeachment received few references, and therefore had a reduced size, which indicates their marginal role in relation to the debate of others. Only Fernando Lugo and Mario Madina [14] are inserted in the set of references of other actors, and this is due to the centrality acquired in this month by the possible alliance between the PLRA and the sectors opposed to the impeachment, and Mario Medina as an intermediary actor.
This imbalance or disproportionality between the referred-to actors and the actors making references can be observed in the point graph, where the actors supporting the impeachment find a proportionality (adjusted to the straight line), while the actors opposing the impeachment occupy an imbalanced position in relation to the straight line, in which Fernando Lugo is an actor that is mentioned a lot by others, but rarely mentions other actors.
Figure 1. Graphical representation of name references made in January. Left graph: nodes sorted by communities (colour), tag size and nodes by PageRank. Central graph: nodes sorted by position to coup (green in favour, red against, and blue unknown), and tag size and nodes by weighted out-degree. Right graph: point cloud with weighted in-degree (x) and out-degree (y) according to their position towards the coup.
This can also be seen in the rest of the point graphs for February, March and April, where the actors opposing the impeachment (red) have a high out-degree (make references to many actors), but a low in-degree (receive few mentions from other actors). However, it was in January when a node (Fernando Lugo) reached a high in-degree (mentions) but did not reach the same values again in the other months, which reflects the progressive loss of importance in the strategy of the other actors.
In the graphical representation of the name references made during February we can see how the structure of the strategy network (centre) exhibits a substantial difference with respect to the media structure (left). As we can see in Figure 2, this is due to the centrality acquired by a node that in principle was not important in the political strategy (Lino Oviedo) but whose death in a car accident provoked the restructuration of the media perspective of actors such as Horacio Cartes and Lino Oviedo. As we can see in the cloud of points for February, this event caused, the disappearance of nodes opposing the coup as referred-to actors, and their decreased importance in the media structure. From this month onwards, this situation was maintained.
In February the nodes opposed to the impeachment distanced themselves even more and became fewer, as a consequence of the different strategies of confrontation (the nodes that they refer to and the nodes that mention them). This can be noticed (in the central graph) with the nodes with the greater out-degree, Mario Ferreiro and Fernando Lugo, who are located in different communities: Mario Ferreiro is linked to the presidential candidates (orange) and Fernando Lugo is located in the community of international actors and government actors (community in blue).
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