approaches to analysing twitter
TRANSCRIPT
Jason RutterUniversity of Edinburgh
Approaches to analysing Twitter
What’s in a Tweet?
Image: Thomas Leth-Olsen - https://goo.gl/aq1j59
• Understand Twitter as a cultural & technical assemblage.
• Link research methodology and research question in an informed manner.
• Understand the relationship between offline & online practice.
• Recognise the value of analysing online postings as sociological data for a research project.
AIMS FOR THE (FULL) SESSION
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TwitterFacebook
T: 302 millionF: 1.44 billion
WORLDWIDE USERS
Annual Revenue T: US$ 1.4 billionF: US$ 12.5 billion
Source: http://www.statista.com/
4The Guardian, Thursday 11 June 2015 - http://goo.gl/K7Z2vb
Dhiraj Murthy (2013)Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age
• Global Village• Real-time Broadcast
• Journalism• Disasters• Activism• Health
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TWEETS USING #labourdebate
Yvette Cooper
Andy Burnham
Liz Kendall
Jeremy Corbyn
Angry Salmond
BBC Newsnight
Corbyn4LeaderMirrorPolitics
RedPeter99
George Aylett
Tweets using #labourdebate during 17-18 June 2015 – n=17584
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Benedict Anderson (1983/1991/2006)Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism
We find community in networks, not groups.
“ ”Wellman, B. (2001). Physical place and cyber-place: Changing portals and the rise
of networkedindividualism. International Journal for
Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), 227-252.
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KATY PERRYFollowers: 71 millionFollowing: 155
Image: Sleepyibis - https://goo.gl/EofMmw
http://sysomos.com/insidetwitter/engagement/ Based on 1.2 billion Tweets in 2010
IN THIS SOCIAL NETWORK
MOST TWEETS ARE NOT PART
OF THE CONVERSATION
…
…SO WHAT ARE THEY DOING?
Only 1.53% of Twitter Conversation are Three
Levels Deep
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The vast majority of what happens on social media is unremarkable, desperately and dreadfully corporate, and thus understandably ignored by scholars and analysts. Social media scholarship has so far tended to focus on the edge cases, the exceptions to the norm.
“
”Brabham, D.C., 2015. ‘Studying Normal, Everyday Social Media’. Social Media +
Society, 1(1).
Image: Lali Masriera - https://goo.gl/rjQbei
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accomplished
The mundane has to be
renewed &maintained
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The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
ERVING GOFFMAN
• Theatre metaphor• Different aspects can be dis-
played• Based on understanding of the
situation
Image: Jon Wallach - https://goo.gl/vMLH2n
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Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967)
HAROLD GARFINKEL
• We apply common-sense under-standings
• Everyday is managed by (invisible) routines
• The site of study is natural occur-rence
Image: Miro Yen - https://goo.gl/ETjbAA
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@NtlMuseumsScot,I did a bit of
researchwhile my other halfplaye
d#winwin
Great afternoon
computer games.
Image: Rebecca Thompson - https://goo.gl/xcnVK3
Nvivo NCaptureBrowser add-on to harvest:
Twitter postsFacebook pagesWeb pages (pdf)Linkedin groups
YouTube video & comments
http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo_add-ons.aspx
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WHAT DOES A TWEET LOOK LIKE?
Image: Raffi Krikorian - https://goo.gl/3triKy
Tweet ID, Text, Creation date, Author’s name, Screen name, No. of followers & following, URL,
Location, Type of location, A/c creation date, Time zone, Language, No of retweets, Is the a/c
verified?, Country, Application that sent the tweet…
Plus ‘ANNOTATIONS’
Christine Hine (2015)Ethnography FOR the Internet:Embedded, Embodied and Everyday
• Multi-site and multi-method• Follow ‘connections’ (networks)
• Embedded: Our view of ‘the internet’ is culturally situated.
• Embodied: We ‘do’ the internet physically and emotionally.
• Everyday: Part of our mundane & familiar routine
• Technology and our use of it is social and socially mediated
• We integrate our everyday identity into technology• Twitter is only one tool in the SNS flow – (Hines on
Antiques Roadshow)• The questions we seek to answer change our
methods.• Looking Forward - How would this apply to:
Instagram? Facebook? Reactions to Charleston Shooting? Enthusiasts such a musicians?
WHAT HAVE WE DISCUSSED?
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