Social Media Analysis - An introduction to online tools

Luigi Di Martino @luigi_dm Cecilia Hilder @CeciliaHilder

Social Media AnalysisAn introduction to online tools

Go to the Social Media Tools Guidegoo.gl/mZSpuf

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10O9SqMWbfPmsJEfuJ7tRUHFCBCpcOysTmwO_kKhQVCY



www.digitalmethods.net > Tools

Online tutorials: Search “Digital Methods Initiative” YouTube Channel

University of Amsterdam: Digital Methods tools

http://www.digitalmethods.net

http://www.digitalmethods.net

Research Approach

Social networks and platforms

• Twitonomy, Socioviz & Netlytic

Easy-to-use tools

• #NewWS vs #savethebird

Twitter Advanced tools

• The ICS page

Facebook Advanced tools

Structure

Research Approach



Easy-to-use tools



• The ICS page


Approaches

Empirical (data-centric)

Data-driven

Computational social science

Digital methods/humanities

Approaches to Big Data

Use online tools available and/or learn to code

Be aware of the mechanisms behind these tools.

Options

General Research Sequence

1Research questions

2Platforms,

keywords orhashtags/

pages or users

3Data extraction

4Data

processing

5Data

visualisation

6Data analysis(with theory)

computer-assisted stages

In the case of easy-to-use tools these stages are performed at once

Research Approach



Easy-to-use tools



• The ICS page


A social network site is:

A networked communication platform in which participants

(Ellison & boyd 2014:158)

1. have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-supplied content, content provided by others users, and/or system provided data;

2. can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and

3. can consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of user-generated connections on the site.

Understanding different platforms

Gathering data from different platforms, structures, API and limitations.

Hashtag-search

Context

As of September 2014:

● 71% of online adults use Facebook

● 23% of online adults use Twitter

● 26% use Instagram

● 28% use Pinterest

● 28% use LinkedIn

Pew Research Center

● 968 million daily active users on average for June 2015

● 844 million mobile daily active users on average for June 2015

● 1.49 billion monthly active users as of June 30, 2015

● 1.31 billion mobile monthly active users as of June 30, 2015

● Approximately 83.1% of Facebook daily active users are outside

the US and Canada.

newsroom.fb.com/company-info

Facebook statistics

Reminder: Most of the world still isn't on Twitter

Kalev H. Leetaru gdeltproject.org

#G20 #OnMyAgenda pre-G20 tweets geolocation (7-13/11/2014).

Geolocation: cartodb.com

Research Approach



Easy-to-use tools



• The ICS page


Easy to use

Free ($20 month for CSV downloadable files)

Login via your own Twitter account

Search for user (@) or hashtag (#)

Oaktree

Oaktree & AYCC - Tweet history

SocioViz

SocioViz - AYCC

Netlytic - Oaktree & AYCC

Research Approach



Easy-to-use tools



• The ICS page


An example: #savethebird vs #NewWS

● Create an Archive of tweets.

● Let it run as long as you need.

● Download the spreadsheet.

● There are several tools for capturing tweets. Only few require programming skills.

● A free option for WSU staff is Twitter Scraper by Intersect launchpod.intersect.org.au

Extraction

#NewWS

Processing

Visualising relationships

Edges

Gephi is an interactive visualisation and exploration platform for networks.Runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Gephi is open-source and free.

How Gephi creates relationships or edges

Visualisation: Networks with Gephi

#sav

ethe

bird #N

ewW

S

@mention networkNode size = outdegree Node darkness = indegree Edge darkness = mentions

#NewWS

Numbers behind the graphOutdegree: Numbers of mentions posted

Indegree: number of mentions sent

@mention networkNode size = outdegree

Node darkness = indegree Edge darkness = mentions

#savethebird

Research Approach



Easy-to-use tools



• The ICS page


Facebook: Netvizz

Remember to create a research account on Facebook.

Facebook: Netvizz

The ICS Facebook page

Posts by type Jan-Aug 2015

Data collected using Netvizz,from January to August 2015

Extracted data from 136 posts, with 87 users liking or commenting 391 times.


Average Engagement Jan-Aug 2015

Average engagement by type


Tableau Public

The most engaging post


Conclusion

Knowledge Data collection is always steeped in a specific way of understanding the world and constrained by given material and social conditions (Leonelli & Bezuidenhout, 2015).

The process of collecting, processing and above all interpreting the data are stages where the researcher makes choices that lead to a certain kind of subjectivity.

Access Skills and economic resources: Academic digital divide?

API (application programming interface)

Size No clear boundaries and demarcations of what lies in the dataset, the so-called control zone

Ethics Consent

Traceability

Limitations

Final thoughts

Questions and tools

Analyse and think through the data

A call to engage with social media/analysis

Know who is using the tools and where

Luigi Di Martino @luigi_dm Cecilia Hilder @CeciliaHilder

Social Media AnalysisAn introduction to online tools

Social Media Analysis - An introduction to online tools

Data & Analytics

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