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Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography to explore candidates' digital interactions Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Matti Nelimarkka, Mari Tuokko, Mari Marttila, Arto Kekkonen, Mikko Villi #digivaalit2015 @jahapaula

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Page 1: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography

to explore candidates' digital interactions

Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Matti Nelimarkka, Mari Tuokko, Mari Marttila, Arto Kekkonen, Mikko Villi

#digivaalit2015@jahapaula

Page 2: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

ContextFinnish Parliamentary Elections 2015

• Computational data collection from Twitter, Facebook and 19 national news media outlets

• Online ethnography (netnography / media ethnography) field work for 1 month before the Election date

Original research focus • How candidates and other actors influence media agenda through

social media?

Extended focuses

• Interaction in social media • Hashtags in election campaigns

• Interest groups during the election campaigning

Page 3: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Computational social science

Practices of utilizing computational, algorithmic methods to study society and social questions. (e.g., Lazer et al., 2009)• data collection• data preprocessing• data analysis

Page 4: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Burning questions for social science and big data!Do you know the context where data was collected?(e.g. boyd & Crawford, 2012, ; Gillespie 2014)!Are you sure your algorithms compute the right thing?(e.g. Grimmer & Stewart, 2013)!What about data selection and cleaning of your data?(e.g. Ekbia et al., 2015)

Page 5: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

• Aims to create understanding and make sense of human life and social communities.

• Usually conducted in the natural environments of human action.

• Field work

• Participatory observation

• Documents

Ethnography

Picture: Malinowski/WikimediaCommons

Page 6: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

• Several different sub-approaches: webnography, network ethnography, netnography, media ethnography, trace ethnography…

• Challenges and questions (e.g. Wittel, 2000; Markham, 2013):

• What counts as participatory observation online?

• Displacement between ethnographer and the field, lack of physical context

• Relationship between the online and “the real”?

Online Ethnography

Picture: DaveDen / Uncyclopedia

Page 7: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Illustrative example studies: Candidates & interaction in Facebook

Common theme for political research (e.g. Stromer-Galley 2000, 2004; Grahamn et al. 2013; Goldbeck et al. 2010, Larsson 2015, Grant et al. 2010)

RQ1: What kind of differences we observe between the parties on interactivity in social media services?

RQ2: To what degree we observe negative campaigning in candidate-candidate interaction?

Page 8: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Data and MethodEthnographic field work

• Observation conducted by three researchers 19.3. – 19.4.2015 • Facebook and Twitter researcher accounts created, Tweetdeck used

for Twitter • Focus on the forming of the online agenda around the election,

candidate communication styles and interaction with other actors Social media data sets

• All public Facebook pages of the candidates (n = 1111) • Collected using a social media monitoring tool 99analytics and FQL

language • In total, 61 790 updates and 67 956 comments to those updates. • Extracting the authors of posts and comparison with Kruskal-Wallis

Χ2-test and sentiment analysis using SentiStrenght (Thelwall et al. 2010)

Page 9: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

RQ1: Party differencesSmall parties interact the most: Quantified interaction

levels between large parties, small parties and non-parliamentary parties are significantly different (p≈0.02).

Page 10: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

RQ2: Candidate interactionEngaging other candidates from other parties

with harsh conversation styles (both Twitter and FB).

The world's highest tax rate is not an competitive advantage. To which country are your referring here @Calle_Haglund? I would rather concentrate on questions considering Finland (tweet from the chairman of the Left Alliance, April 7th 2015)

@paavoarhinmaki By saying this I am trying to tell where Finland would end up to if for example the Left Alliance got to realize their election promises (tweet from the chairman of the Swedish People's Party, April 7th 2015)

Sentiment analysis: comments made to other party candidates’ FB pages are more negative in tone (p≈0.002)

Page 11: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Burning questions for social science and big data!Do you know the context where data was collected?(e.g. boyd & Crawford, 2012)!Are you sure your algorithms compute the right thing?(e.g. Grimmer & Stewart, 2013)!What about data selection and cleaning of your data?(e.g. Ekbia et al., 2015)

Ethnography enhances

contextual framing

Human observations supports the interpretation

(Methodological triangulation)

Ethnography supports data

collection

+ big data sets allow

generalization of the results

+ computational methods allow bigger data

sets

Page 12: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Discussion…

Data augmented ethnography

Page 13: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

Discussion…1. Data and observations always remain

incomplete: the data that is visible for an observing researcher but also data sets, collected handles or hashtags,; the intention and nuances of communication

2. Researchers need to be ready to follow phenomena as they unfold: but elections have a schedule, riots do not

3. Making some selections needed during the analysis process

Page 14: Data augmented ethnography: using big data and ethnography  to explore candidates' digital interactions

#vaalit2015

Thank You!!

Project home page: https://www.hiit.fi/digivaalit-2015

Rajapinta blog: http://www.rajapinta.co

We thank Helsingin Sanomat Foundation for providing funding through the project “Digivaalit 2015”. We also thank Kone Foundation for providing funding through the project “Digital Humanities of Public Policy-making”.