Paper by Axel Bruns and Tim Highfield, presented at ECREA, Lisbon, 13 Nov. 2014.

1. Mapping a National Twittersphere:
A ‘Big Data’ Analys is of
Australian Twitter User Networks
Axel Bruns, Darryl Woodford, Troy Sadkowsky, and Tim Highfield
Social Media Research Group
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
a.bruns / dp.woodford / t.sadkowsky / t.highfield @ qut.edu.au
@snurb_dot_info / @dpwoodford / @tsadkowsky / @timhighfield

2. THE AUSTRALIAN TWITTERSPHERE
• Twitter in Australia:
– Strong take-up since 2009
– Centred around 25-55 age range, urban, educated, affluent users (but gradually broadening)
– Significant role in crisis communication, political communication, audience engagement, …
• Mapping the Twittersphere:
– Long-term project to identify all Australian Twitter accounts
– First iteration: snowball crawl of follower/followee networks
• Starting with key hashtag populations (#auspol, #spill, …)
• Map of ~1m accounts in early 2012
– Second iteration: full crawl of global Twitter ID numberspace through to Sep. 2013
(~870m accounts)
• Filtering by description, location, timezone fields
• Focus on identifiably Australian cities, states, timezones and other markers
• 2.8 million Australian accounts identified (by Sep. 2013)
• Retrieval of their follower/followee lists
• Best guess of account location based on timezone, location and description settings

3. MAPPING THE AUSTRALIAN USERBASE
• Mapping the Twittersphere:
– Filtered to include only accounts with (followers + followees) >= 1000
• 140k accounts, 22.8m follower/followee connections within this group
– Mapped using Gephi Force Atlas 2 algorithm (LinLog mode, scaling 0.0001, gravity 0.5)
– Qualitative interpretation of network clusters based on high-degree nodes in each cluster
– Exploration of key profile statistics (join date, number of tweets, tweeting rate)
• Activity Patterns:
– Data gathered on selected tweeting activities (hashtag participation, link sharing, …)
– Data filtered for participating accounts included in the 140k most connected users
– Data superimposed on underlying network map
• Applications:
– Combined analysis of network structures and tweeting activities
– Evaluation of user engagement across topics
– Comparative benchmarking across activities

4. GROWTH OVER TIME

5. Education
Agriculture
Literature
Adelaide / SA
Food
Wine
Beer
Leftists Hard Right
Netizens
Politics
Journalists
Marketing
Mums PR
Parenting
Real Estate
Investing
Home Business
Sole Traders
Self-Help
HR / Support
NRL
Followback
Urban Media
Utilities
Advertising
Business
TV
Fashion
Beauty
Arts
Cinema
News
TalkbackCycling
Music
V8s
UFC
AFL
Football
Horse Racing
Cricket
NRU
Celebrities
Hillsong
Perth
Pop
Media
Teen Idols
Cody Simpson
THE AUSTRALIAN TWITTERSPHERE

6. PROTECTED (~3.5%)

7. VERIFIED (~1.8%)

8. NUMBER OF TWEETS

9. ACCOUNT AGE

11. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2006

12. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2007

13. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2008

14. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2009

15. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2010

16. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2011

17. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2012

18. ACCOUNTS CREATED IN 2013

19. LOCATION

20. USER ENGAGEMENT PATTERNS
• Datasets included:
– Q&A: political talkshow, Australian Broadcasting Corporation – #qanda, qanda (3 Sep. to 7 Oct. 2014)
– Big Brother: reality TV, Nine Network – #BBAU, #BBAU9, @BBAU9, #bigbrotherau (3 Sep. to 7 Oct. 2014)
– AFL Grand Final: Seven Network – #AFLGF, AFL, HAWvSYD … (27 Sep. 2014, tracked since 26 Sep.)
– ABC News: main public broadcaster – abc.net.au (since June 2012)
– news.com.au: mainstream news site – news.com.au (since June 2012)
– Daily Telegraph: tabloid newspaper – dailytelegraph.com.au (since June 2012)
– The Conversation: university-supported opinion site – theconversation.edu.au/.com (since June 2012)

22. AFL GRAND FINAL

23. Q&A

24. BIG BROTHER

25. ABC NEWS

26. NEWS.COM.AU

27. DAILY TELEGRAPH

28. THE CONVERSATION

29. FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• Mapping the Australian Twittersphere:
– Further analysis of network structures
– Identification of key accounts / roles (influencers, opinion leaders, bridging nodes, …)
– Exploration of activity patterns across different clusters
– Examination of structural changes over time
– Exploration of network patterns beyond top users
• The Twittersphere map as background information:
– Footprints of specific social media practices / mainstream media entities
– Reactions to specific events across different clusters
– Viral dissemination of information across the network
• Beyond Australia:
– Maps of Norway and Germany currently in progress…

30. http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
@snurb_dot_info
@dpwoodford
@katieprowd
@tsadkowsky
@timhighfield
@jeanburgess
@socialmediaQUT – http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au/
This research is funded by the Australian Research Council through Future Fellowship and LIEF
grants FT130100703 and LE140100148.