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Paper presented at the LMU workshop Methodeninnovationen in der Internetforschung, München, 12 July 2012.
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http://mappingonlinepublics.net/http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Towards a Comprehensive Picture of the Australian Twittersphere
Assoc. Prof. Axel BrunsARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and InnovationQueensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
[email protected] – @snurb_dot_infohttp://mappingonlinepublics.net/
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Why Twitter?
o Researching Twitter:o Significant world-wide social networko ~200 million users (but how many active?)o Varied range of uses: from phatic communication to
emergency coordinationo Healthy third-party ecosystem (for now)o Strong history of user innovation:
@replies, #hashtagso Flat and open network structure:
non-reciprocal following, public profiles by defaulto Good API for gathering data for research
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
New Media and Public Communication: Mapping Australian User-Created Content
in Online Social Networkso Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (2010-13) – $410,000
o QUT (Brisbane), Sociomantic Labs (Berlin)o First comprehensive study of Australian social media useo Computer-assisted cultural analysis: tracking, mapping, analysing blogs, Twitter,
Flickr, YouTube as ‘networked publics’o Addressing the problem of scale (‘Big Data’) and disciplinary change in media,
cultural and communication studies – natively digital methodso Studying society with the Internet (Richard Rogers)
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
#hashtag Publicso #hashtags
o ‘#’ + keyword makes tweets easily discoverable and marks themeso E.g. #ausvotes, #qldfloods, #londonriots, #royalwedding, #euro2012,
…
o Publics o Attend to matters of shared concern with some level of co-awarenesso Varied in intensity and temporalityo Emergent, constituted via discourse & affect
o #hashtag publicso Not all hashtags constitute publics; Twitter doesn’t ‘contain’ publicso What are the patterns in the dynamics of different hashtag-based
publics?o What might account for these differences?
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
#ausvotes: Leaders
#qldfloods @replies
mainstream media
authorities
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
But Why?
o Possible research questions:o Ad hoc events and publics:
o How do online publics form and dissolve? How do they interact, what structures do they form?
o Where do they draw information from? What do they share?
o Do they simply consist of the usual suspects? How insular and disconnected are online publics?
o Hashtags in context:o How do different hashtag events compare? Are there
common types of hashtags/publics?o How ‘big’ are they? What topics attract attention on
Twitter?o What community (?) structures emerge?
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Hashtag Publics, Hashtag Metrics
o How big is the central core of users?o Long tail distribution: most active users responsible for
the majority of contento 90/9/1 rule: how much does the top 1% of users
contribute?o #royalwedding: ~10% of all tweetso #qldfloods: ~17% of all tweetso #auspol: ~65% of all tweets
o What do they do: inform, share, chat?o How many links do they share?o How much retweeting do they do (edited/unedited)?o How many @replies do they send / receive?o … etc.
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Towards Comparative Metrics
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Towards a Typology of Twitter Uses
o How are hashtags used (during acute events)?o Gatewatching:
o Finding and sharing information about breaking news (before the mainstream media do?)
o Ad hoc publics: many URLs, many retweets (even unedited)o Audiencing:
o Shared experience of major (foreseen) eventso Imagined community of fellow participants: few URLs, limited
retweeting
o What other uses are there?o Continuing discussions (#auspol, #bundesliga, …)o Memes (#ghettohurricanenames, …)o Emotive hashtags (#fail, #win, #headdesk, …)o What about keywords?
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Beyond Hashtags
o Publics on Twitter:o Micro: @reply and retweet conversationso Meso: hashtag ‘communities’o Macro: follower/followee networks
Multiple overlapping publics / networks
o What drives their formation and dissipation?o How do they interact and interweave?o How are they interleaved with the wider
media ecology?o Twitter doesn’t contain publics: publics transcend
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Twitter and/in the Media Ecology
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Twitter and/in the Media Ecology
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Understanding Australian Twitter Use
o What is the Australian Twitter userbase?o Large-scale snowballing projecto Starting from selected hashtag communities
(e.g. #ausvotes, #qldfloods, #masterchef)o Identifying participating users, testing for ‘Australianness’:
o Timezone setting, location information, profile informationo Retrieving follower/followee information for each account
(very slow)
o Progress update:o ~950,000 Australian users identified so far, ~21m
connections ~2 million Australian users in total?
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
The Australian Twittersphere?
Follower/followee network:~150,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~550,000 known accounts by mid-2011) colour = outdegree, size = indegree
The Australian Twittersphere?
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = outdegree, size = indegree
Thematic ClustersPerth
Marketing / PR
DesignWeb
Creative
FarmingAgriculture
HardlineConservatives
ConservativesJournalists
ALPProgressives
Greens
News
OpinionNews
NGOsSocial Policy
ITTech
Social MediaTechPR
Advertising
Real EstateProperty
JobsHR
Business
BusinessProperty
Parenting
Mums CraftArts
FoodWine
Beer
Adelaide
SocialICTs
CreativeDesign
FashionBeauty
UtilitiesServices
Net Culture
BooksLiteraturePublishing
Film
TheatreArts
RadioTV Music
DanceHip Hop
Triple J
TalkbackBreakfast TVCelebritiesCycling
Union
NRL
Football
CricketAFL
SwimmingV8s
Evangelicals
Teachinge-Learning
Schools
ChristiansHillsong
Teens
Jonas Bros.Beliebers
Austra
lian
Bands
@KRuddMP
@JuliaGillard
#Hashtag Participation
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) size = indegree
#auspol
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #auspol tweets, size = indegree
#ausvotes
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #ausvotes tweets, size = indegree
#qldfloods
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #qldfloods tweets, size = indegree
#masterchef
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #masterchef tweets, size = indeg.
theaustralian.com.au URLs
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree
abc.net.au URLs
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
Understanding Twitter Publics
o #hashtags:o Useful coordinating mechanism for core discussiono Relatively easy to capture and analyseo Fails to capture non-hashtagged tweets about the topico Good case studies, but very little comparative work to date
o National / global Twittersphere mapso Crucial contextual baseline for #hashtag case studieso Slow and laborious data gathering process, never completeo Very long-term perspective, beyond most funded projectso Indispensable for study of Twitter as a public space
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
‘Big Data’ and the Digital Humanities
o Emerging needs in Twitter research:o Unified, compatible methods and metrics for Twitter analysis
Tools and approaches shared at http://mappingonlinepublics.net/o Powerful infrastructure for long-term, high-volume tracking of
Australian public communication on Twitter Data access requires substantial funding stream
o Facilities for long-term data storage and preservation Key roles for National Library, National Archives
o Integration with related datasets (e.g. MSM content) Need to address data interoperability questions
o Twitter as a test case for digital humanities researcho Widespread, open, public platform for everyday communicationo Tool for observing society at scale through Internet research
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
@snurb_dot_info@jeanburgess@_StephenH@DrTNitins@timhighfield@cdtavijit