Big Data and Social Analytics - Wouter van Atteveldtvanatteveldt.com/p/social_analytics.pdf · 2016. 10. 3. · Big DataFacebok and VotingFacebook mood manipulationConclusion Big

Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion

Big Data and Social Analytics

Wouter van Atteveldt

October 2016

Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt


Are daters racist?



Are daters racist?



But are they?



And did it get better?



A/B testing

30% higher conversion for Asian (Asian market)



A/B testing

30% higher conversion for Asian (Asian market)



A/B testing

15% higher conversion for female



Psychohistory



Big Data and Social Analytics

� Big Data

� Data Science

� Computational Social Science

� Social Physics



Daily trail of information

� Smartphone location

� RFID

� License plates

� Twitter, foursquare, instagram

� Shopping (online & o�ine)

� Reviews (book, hotel)

� Dating

� Electronic Patient File

� Insurance claims



Opportunities: Research paradigms

� Experiments:� A/B testing vs. traditional controlled� Behaviour vs. self-report� milllions vs. 30 per cell

� Observational studies:� Behaviour vs. self-report� Millions vs. hundreds� Real time vs. waves



Department of Facebook studies?

� Voting and Facebook: A 60 million users experiment

� Facebook mood manipulation



Facebook and voting

� A 61-million-person experiment in social in�uence and politicalmobilization

� Bond et al (2012), Nature

� Do online messages increase voting behaviour?

� E�ect of social pressure and contagion



Previous studies

� Experiments and '�eld' experiments

� Small-N

� Weak results

� Voting is 'contagious'



Facebook experiment

� Informational vs social vs control

� N=61 million (!)

� E�ect on vote intention, information search, behaviour









Conclusion

� Social message promotes voting

� Voting behaviour contagious

� E�ect small, but margins are small too

� p>.001 even with 61M respondents





Facebook mood manipulation

� Massive online experiment� n=689,003

� Is emotion contagious?

� Hide positive/negative/random messages

� Check sentiment of posts



Sentiment analysis

� LIWC word list� Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count� James Pennebaker e.a.

� 406 positive words� Love, nice, sweet, etc.

� 399 negative words (and subcategories)� Hurt, ugly, nasty



Results



Critique

� Validity concerns� Hardly signi�cant at this N?� Contagion of word use = emotion?

� Ethical concerns� Manipulation of real people, no opt-in� Data use and privacy

� Scienti�c concerns� Can we validate?� Can we reproduce?



Critique

� Validity concerns� Hardly signi�cant at this N?� Contagion of word use = emotion?

� Ethical concerns� Manipulation of real people, no opt-in� Data use and privacy

� Scienti�c concerns� Can we validate?� Can we reproduce?



Risks and considerations

� Data-driven questions� ("Big data, small questions")

� Data is proprietary� (Reproducability: Lazer et al, Science 2009)

� Ethics� How to get consent from 61M people?

� Privacy� There are no anonymous big data (nor can there be)



Privacy risks





Social Analytics

� Massive amounts of data

� Opportunities� Bridging experimental gap� Unbiased, real-time, sensitive measures� Bring social back in social science

� Threats� Privacy� Reproducibility� Technical complexity

� So?� "If you know R, we have a job for you"


Documents

Big Data and Social Analytics - Wouter van Atteveldtvanatteveldt.com/p/social_analytics.pdf · 2016. 10. 3. · Big DataFacebok and VotingFacebook mood manipulationConclusion Big