Social Media, Big Data, and the Public SphereAssociate Professor Axel BrunsQueensland University of TechnologyBrisbane, Australia

@snurb_dot_info | http://mappingonlinepublics.net/

THE PROMISE OF BIG DATA

• Social media and big data:– Substantial growth in social media usage– User activity generates data and metadata– Readily accessible through APIs– New tools for processing and visualising big data at scale

• Emergence of social media analytics:– Large-scale tracking of public user activities– ‘Trending topics’, user sentiment, network influencers– Scholarly and commercial research– A computational turn towards the digital humanities (David Berry)– Ethical concerns around profiling and content ownership

BIG DATA AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE(S)

• New methodologies:– Empirical, large-scale, real-time investigation– Data-led, comprehensive evaluation rather than small-scale

sampling of public communication– But also: combined quantitative/qualitative approaches– Not studying the Internet, but studying society with the Internet

(Richard Rogers)

• New frameworks:– Public spherules, issue publics, personal publics (Jan Schmidt):

multiple interlinked spaces in a complex media ecology

WHY TWITTER?

• Researching Twitter:– Significant world-wide social network– ~500 million accounts (but how many active?)– Varied range of uses: from phatic communication to emergency

coordination– Healthy third-party ecosystem (for now)– Strong history of user innovation: @replies, #hashtags– Flat and open network structure:

non-reciprocal following, public profiles by default– Good API for gathering (big) data for research– Ethical concerns comparatively limited

BEYOND HASHTAGS

• Publics on Twitter:– Micro: @reply and retweet conversations– Meso: follower/followee networks– Macro: hashtag ‘communities’ (Bruns & Moe, forthcoming)

Multiple overlapping publics / networks

• What drives their formation and dissipation?• How do they interact and interweave?• How are they interleaved with the wider media ecology?• Twitter doesn’t contain publics: publics transcend Twitter

UNDERSTANDING TWITTER PUBLICS

• #hashtags:– Useful coordinating mechanism for core discussion– Relatively easy to capture and analyse– Fails to capture non-hashtagged tweets about the topic– Good case studies, but very little comparative work to date

• National / global Twittersphere maps:– Crucial contextual baseline for #hashtag case studies– Slow and laborious data gathering process, never complete– Very long-term perspective, beyond most funded projects– Indispensable for study of Twitter as a public space

#AUSVOTES (JULY-AUG. 2010): THEMES

#ROYALWEDDING (29 APR. 2011)

THE AUSTRALIAN TWITTERSPHERE?

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = outdegree, size = indegree

THEMATIC CLUSTERS

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

#AUSPOL

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #auspol tweets, size = indegree

#AUSVOTES

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #ausvotes tweets, size = indegree

#ROYALWEDDING

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #royalwedding tweets, size = indeg.

#MASTERCHEF

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = #masterchef tweets, size = indeg.

THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU URLS

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree

ABC.NET.AU URLS

Follower/followee network:~120,000 Australian Twitter users(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012) colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree

TWITTER AND/IN THE MEDIA ECOLOGY

‘BIG DATA’ AND RESEARCH SKILLS

• Researchers need interdisciplinary skill sets:– Media & communication to understand the media environment– Maths and statistics to deal with ‘big data’– Computer science to develop tools to process social media data– Communication design to develop effective visualisations– Writing and communication skills to communicate the results– …

– Where do we find them?(few people have such a diverse range of skills)

– How do we support their work? (we’re only just developing our methods and tools)

– What is our strategy for dealing with precarity?(sudden API changes, changing fortunes of platforms, …)

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