twitter in germany: a big data perspective
TRANSCRIPT
Twitter in Germany: A Big Data PerspectiveProf. Axel BrunsARC Future FellowDigital Media Research CentreQueensland University of TechnologyBrisbane, [email protected] – @snurb_dot_info – http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
SOME BACKGROUND
• QUT Digital Media Research Centre:– Australia’s leading centre in the field– Strong focus on innovation in digital research methods– Significant expertise in ‘big social data’ analytics
• Social media research at the DMRC:– Cutting-edge, large-scale data gathering infrastructure– Established frameworks for in-depth data analytics– Significant research projects on social media and crisis communication,
politics and elections, news and journalism, entertainment and everyday life
– Strategic partnerships with leading research institutes
TWITTER IN GERMANY (AND BEYOND)
• Identifying the German-language Twittersphere:– Crawl of entire global Twittersphere, as at September 2013
(~870 million accounts)– Filtering for German(-language) users:
• Location / Description fields of account profiles:– City and state names in Germany, Austria, Switzerland
(false positives excluded)– Generic country terms– Uniquely German words (“und”, “ich”, “nicht”, …)
• German set as user interface language at Twitter.com– Repeat crawl planned later in 2015– Collaboration with the Centre for Digital Humanities at
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Results:– ~9.2 million unique accounts identified– 2.481 billion statuses posted (until Sep. 2013)
SLOW START, STEADY(ISH) GROWTH
COMPARISON: TWITTER IN AUSTRALIA
COUNTRY DISTRIBUTION (IF KNOWN)
STATE DISTRIBUTION (IF KNOWN)
CITY DISTRIBUTION (IF KNOWN)
ACTIVITY PATTERNS: TWEETS POSTED
ACTIVITY PATTERNS: TWEETS/DAY
1+ tweet/day: ~350,000 accounts
1+ tweet/week: ~900,000 accounts
1+ tweet/hour: ~21,000 accounts
EARLY USERS TALK, RECENT USERS LISTEN?
NEXT STEPS
• Twitter adoption drivers:– Correlation between uptake spikes and local/global events– Comparison with other national Twitterspheres
• Mapping the German-language Twittersphere:– Identification and mapping of follower/followee networks– Analysis of network clustering patterns– Exploration of thematic and geographic factors– Analysis of networking repertoires
• Tracing and modelling information dissemination:– Impact of network structures on information flows– Observation of existing cases and computational modelling
Education
Agriculture
Literature
Adelaide / SA
FoodWine
Beer
Parenting
Mums PR
Netizens
Marketing
InvestingReal Estate
Home BusinessSole Traders
Self-Help
HR / Support
Followback
Urban MediaUtilities
Advertising
Business
Fashion
Beauty
ArtsCinema
Journalists
Politics
Hard RightLeftists
News
CyclingTalkback
Music
TVV8s UFC
NRL
AFL
Football
Horse Racing
CricketNRU
Celebrities
Hillsong
Perth
PopMedia
Teen Idols
Cody Simpson
THE AUSTRALIAN TWITTERSPHERE
DETNIX: GERMAN TWITTER NEWS INDEX
DETNIX
• Collaborative project:– QUT Digital Media Research Centre and Hans-Bredow-Institut
• Data gathering:– All tweets containing links to one of several hundred German news sites– Includes tweets with shortened links (t.co, bit.ly, etc.)– Continuous data gathering since August 2012 (with some outages)
• Analysis:– Overall development of sharing patterns– Marketshare of specific news organisations– In-depth analysis of day-to-day trends in sharing activity– Correlation with local, regional, and global events
• Similar projects in place for Australia (ATNIX), and Nordic countries
DATA INTAKE / WEEK
TWEETS / WEEK
NOTABLE DEVELOPMENTS
DEUTSCHE WELLE: SUCCESS FACTORS
DEUTSCHE WELLE: SUCCESS FACTORS
MARKETSHARE DEVELOPMENTS
NEXT STEPS
• Streamlining and enhancing DETNIX analytics:– Direct Twitter API to datastore pipeline– Live dashboard to DETNIX data– Real-time detection of trending URLs / themes– Free and freemium monitoring services
• In-depth analyses:– Twitter response to specific topics and stories– Performance comparisons between news organisations– User loyalty and userbase structures– Information dissemination across the Twittersphere
ABC NEWS
DAILY TELEGRAPH
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/@snurb_dot_info@petamitchell@flxvctr
@socialmediaQUT – http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au/ @qutdmrc – https://www.qut.edu.au/research/dmrc
This research is funded by the Australian Research Council through Future Fellowship and LIEF grants FT130100703 and LE140100148.