RELIGION, SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE WEB ARCHIVE

Peter WebsterWebster Research and Consulting@pj_webster / @WebsterRandCwebsterresearchconsulting.com

Internet/Web Archive Studies

Internet Studies Web Archive Studies

Present-focussed Past-focussed

Data to order Dealing with traces

Data as data Data as artefact

Social-scientific ? Humanistic?

The web-archived Facebook

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/43188236/

The web-archived Facebook

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100614102751/http://www.facebook.com/nickclegg

The web-archived Twitter

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100612011716/http://twitter.com/nick_clegg/

Archiving: a common issue

Web 1.0 Social networks

Technical Databases, Javascript, streaming media

… + password protection, social relationships

Legal Copyright, defamation, data protection

… + international context with unclear ownership

Access Often permission based At discretion of provider

Organisational Many national web archives Not (yet) any open archives of social network content

Rates of decay of shared content

Using event-centric social media data

2009-12:

• after 12 months: 11% lost, 20% archived

• after 30 months: 27% lost, 41% archived

• or, loss of c 0.02% per day after 12 months

[Aldeen & Nelson (2012), http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.3026 ]

The web its own archive?

Open UK Web Archive 2004-13 comparison.@anjacks0n http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/webarchive/2014/10/what-is-still-on-the-web-after-10-years-of-archiving-.html

Common requirements

• national/international archiving

frameworks

• better partnerships between scholars &

archivists

• integration of archive provision for both

dataset and artefact

But also...

To reintegrate study of social networks

with that of the web, to understand:

• shared content outside social networks

• representation of social networks

elsewhere

• link structures between them

Religious organisations & social media: issues

• 'official' participation in social networks

• rates of adoption

• denominational patterns of adoption

• patterns of integration in traditional web

estate

JISC UK Web Domain Dataset (1996-2013)

• copy of Internet Archive holdings for .uk

• bought by JISC, held by British Library

• 60TB of data

• no direct access to content

• prototype search at webarchive.org.uk/shine

• derived datasets in public domain (including

UK Host Link Graph) at data.webarchive.org.uk

Two pilot enquiries, using UK Host Link Graph (1996-2010)

Extracted subset of data: inbound links to a list of

social media domains (including major blog

platforms.), eg.

2008 | newsimg.bbc.co.uk | youtube.com | 45

2008 | archbishopofyork.org.uk | flickr.com | 1

2002 | secularism.org.uk | geocities.com | 1

Pilot Study 1. Rates of adoption: evangelical churches

• Sample of 350 congregations linking to

Evangelical Alliance

• Hypothesis: that evangelicals quick to

embrace new means of evangelism

Rates of adoption: evangelical churches

• 48% engaged with at least one social

media channel

• Many blogs:

bishopmike.wordpress.com

asbojesus.wordpress.com

ywamcarlisledtsasia2007-08.blogspot.co.uk

• 6% engage with Twitter, 13% with FB

Pilot Study 2: Rates of adoption: creationism in UK

Creationism:

• anti-evolutionary account of human origins

• modern

• a minority feature of evangelicalism

• 2006: campaign around school science

Creationism in UK Host Link Graph

Based on analysis of in-bound links to a

sample of hosts:

• noted by other creationists, secularist

campaigners

• Mostly ignored by mainstream media and the

academy

• … and by the bulk of evangelical churches

[ http://peterwebster.me/2014/11/18/reading-creationism-in-the-web-archive/ ]

A creationist visitor attraction

Creationist organisations & social media: first recorded linksOne unusual early adopter, Noah's Ark Zoo

Farm

2006: flickr.com

2009: twitter.com (@Noahs_Ark_Zoo)

2010: facebook.com

( https://www.facebook.com/noahsarkzoo )

But most creationist sites much less engagedLinks to:

Many bloggers (again)

YouTube (a few)

2008: biblicalcreation.org.uk, amen.org.uk

2009: biblicalcreationministries.org.uk,

truthinscience.org.uk

Twitter/FB

none (except Noah's Ark Zoo)

Next steps

• larger samples, both of social media

channels and creationist/evangelical hosts

• qualitative study of what the recorded links

represent in individual pages

• benchmarking rates of adoption against other

content types (eg. Roman Catholics, or

secularist/humanist sites)

QUESTIONS ? Peter Websterpeter@websterresearchconsulting.com@pj_webster / @WebsterRandCpeterwebster.mewebsterresearchconsulting.com