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
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Are daters racist?
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Are daters racist?
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
But are they?
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
And did it get better?
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
A/B testing
30% higher conversion for Asian (Asian market)
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
A/B testing
30% higher conversion for Asian (Asian market)
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
A/B testing
15% higher conversion for female
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Psychohistory
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Big Data and Social Analytics
� Big Data
� Data Science
� Computational Social Science
� Social Physics
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Department of Facebook studies?
� Voting and Facebook: A 60 million users experiment
� Facebook mood manipulation
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Previous studies
� Experiments and '�eld' experiments
� Small-N
� Weak results
� Voting is 'contagious'
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Facebook experiment
� Informational vs social vs control
� N=61 million (!)
� E�ect on vote intention, information search, behaviour
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Conclusion
� Social message promotes voting
� Voting behaviour contagious
� E�ect small, but margins are small too
� p>.001 even with 61M respondents
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Facebook mood manipulation
� Massive online experiment� n=689,003
� Is emotion contagious?
� Hide positive/negative/random messages
� Check sentiment of posts
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Results
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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?
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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?
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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)
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Privacy risks
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt
Big Data Facebok and Voting Facebook mood manipulation Conclusion
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"
Big Data and Social Analytics Wouter van Atteveldt