mapping the australian twittersphere
DESCRIPTION
Paper presented by Jean Burgess at the Media in Transition 8 conference, Boston, 3-5 May 2013.TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Mapping the Australian Twittersphere
Jean Burgess & Axel Bruns@jeanburgess @snurb_dot_infohttp://mappingonlinepublics.net/ Queensland University of Technology
![Page 2: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
NEW MEDIA AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION: MAPPING AUSTRALIAN USER-CREATED CONTENT
IN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS
• Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (2010-13) – $410,000– QUT (Brisbane), Sociomantic Labs (Berlin)– First comprehensive study of Australian social media use– Computer-assisted cultural analysis: tracking, mapping, analysing blogs, Twitter,
Flickr, YouTube as ‘networked publics’– Motivated by media, communication & cultural studies’ concerns; combining
quantitative analytics with qualitative analysis
![Page 3: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
‘BIG DATA’ & INTERNET RESEARCH
• Big Data as currency across the sciences and social sciences• Business intelligence & ‘data markets’ (including social media &
online behavioral data).• ‘Computational turn’ in new humanities research: shift from
computational tools to a new computational paradigm, changing the ontologies and epistemologies of humanities research (Berry, 2012).
• Eg shift from ‘close’ to ‘distant’ reading (Moretti); ‘software studies’ (eg Fuller, 2008) and ANT approaches to new media platforms;
• From ‘virtual’/trad social research methods to ‘natively’ digital methods to diagnose patterns of social change (Rogers, 2009).
![Page 4: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
• Data Gathering– yourTwapperkeeper + in-house crawler– Reliant on Twitter API
• Data Processing– Custom Gawk scripts – open source, multiplatform,
programmable command-line tool for processing CSV documents
• Analytics & Visualisation– Gephi – open source, multiplatform network visualisation tool– MS Excel – comparative metrics, coding
A TWITTER RESEARCH TOOLKIT
![Page 5: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
#HASHTAG PUBLICS
• Publics – Attend to matters of shared concern with some level of co-awareness– Varied in intensity and temporality– Emergent, constituted via discourse & affect
• #hashtags– ‘#’ + keyword makes tweets easily discoverable and marks themes– E.g. #ausvotes, #qldfloods, #mit8, #swag, #nofilter, …
• #hashtag publics– Not all hashtags constitute publics; hashtags don’t represent the sum of
engagement with these topics on Twitter; Twitter doesn’t ‘contain’ publics– What are the patterns in the dynamics of different hashtag-based publics?– What might account for these differences?
![Page 6: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
#QLDFLOODS TWEETS
10 Jan 2011 11 Jan 2011 12 Jan 2011 13 Jan 2011 14 Jan 2011 15 Jan 2011
![Page 7: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
#AUSVOTES: LEADERS
![Page 8: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
#QLDFLOODS @REPLIES
mainstream media
authorities
![Page 9: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
#AUSPOL (FEB.-DEC. 2011)
![Page 10: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
TOWARDS COMPARATIVE METRICS
![Page 11: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
MAPPING THE AUSTRALIAN TWITTERSPHERE
• Snowballing: what is the Australian user-base?• Starting from selected hashtag communities in 2010
(e.g. #ausvotes, #qldfloods, #masterchef)• Identifying participating accounts, testing for ‘Australianness’:
• Timezone setting, location information, profile information
• Retrieving follower/followee information for each account (very slow)
• Progress update (end 2012):• ~1.06 million Australian accounts identified so far• ~2 million Australian accounts in total?
![Page 12: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
DISCLAIMERS
The map is not the territory (Korzybski)
…and certainly not the destination
![Page 13: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = outdegree, size = indegree
![Page 14: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
PerthMarketing / 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
Australian Bands
@KRuddMP
@JuliaGillard
![Page 15: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
#AUSPOL
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #auspol tweets, size = indegree
![Page 16: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
#AUSVOTES
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #ausvotes tweets, size = indegree
![Page 17: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
#QLDFLOODS
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #qldfloods tweets, size = indegree
![Page 18: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
#EQNZ
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #eqnz tweets, size = indegree
![Page 19: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
#ROYALWEDDING
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #royalwedding tweets, size = indeg.
![Page 20: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
#MASTERCHEF
Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #masterchef tweets, size = indeg.
![Page 21: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
ABC.NET.AU URLS
URLs for Feb 2013Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree
![Page 22: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
NEWS.COM.AU URLS
URLs for Feb 2013Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree
![Page 23: Mapping the Australian Twittersphere](https://reader037.vdocuments.us/reader037/viewer/2022102901/554eddc0b4c905d1158b4b95/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/