Analysing User
Generated Content
for social science
Generational “we sense” in the Italian blogosphere
Fabio Giglietto* - Luca Rossi - Giovani Boccia Artieri
LaRiCA / University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

wesearch/scenario
Growing availability of
User Generated Content:
persistence/
easy to search/
addressed to an unknowable audience/
easy to replicate/
(boyd 2007)
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

wesearch/theoretical background
persistence invisible audiences replicability searchability
few Writings Printing press, newspapers Digital media World Wide
(pc, video- Web + Google
cameras)
many Writings World Wide Web + Blogs, Digital media World Wide
Flickr, YouTube (pc, video- Web + Google
cameras)
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

wesearch/methodology 
Keywords Identification
Through 5 focus groups we’ve
identified 45 media products
to be used as keywords to
investigate online discourses
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

wesearch/methodology 
Query strings definition
a) Avoid unwanted responses (spam)
b) Obtain the full text of every blog
entry (yahoo pipes)
c) choose between chronological or “by
relevance” output
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

wesearch/methodology 
Storage of blog entries and retrieval of authors’
information
a) Incremental storage of RSS entries
b) Scraping of authors’ information
supported platforms:
Blogger ITA / ENG
Flickr ENG
Il Cannocchiale ENG
Libero ITA
Splinder ITA
Windows Live Space ENG
YouTube ENG
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

wesearch/methodology 
Content analysis of collected data
starting set of keyword: 45
retrieved blogs entries: 3000
cases with authors’ data: 928
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

media&generation/research
May specific media products get
user generated generational
discourses started?
Is it possible to use ugc to
observe the emergence of the
generational discourse?
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

media&generation/conclusions
Media products are anchors
for personal memories which
can be used in an individual
or a generational way.
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

media&generation/conclusions
“I chose to start the nursery class.
My nursery-syndrome and the fact that I
watched Candy Candy when I was a child,
made me choose this university degree ”
(F. female 25 years old)
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

media&generation/conclusions
“And we who are in the age of 30’s, we
belong to the Tiger Mask generation, we
can’t change it […] We had good times,
watching cartoons and TV series that left
their mark. ”
(A. male 32 years old)
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

media&generation/limits&possibilities
- average age of online content producers
- accuracy of published data
- automatically updated online profiles
- need of a more accurate filter technology
- privacy issue
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

media&generation/limits&possibilities
- users share their personal data online
- qualitative analysis of large quantity of data
- spontaneous data
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

http://mediageneration.wordpress.com
fabio.giglietto@uniurb.it*
luca.rossi@uniurb.it
giovanni.bocciaartieri@uniurb.it
http://www.soc.uniurb.it/larica
media&generation
8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics
COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES
PRIN - National Research Project
Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008