Mapping Online Publics

Jean Burgess Senior Research Fellow, Mapping Online Creative Industries Faculty, QUT Twitter: @jeanburgess Project blog: Publics http://mappingonlinepublics.net

the research project New Media and Public Communication: Mapping Australian User- Created Content in Online Social Networks Australian Research Council (ARC): Discovery Project (2010-12) – A$410.000 Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess (QUT), Brisbane Lars Kirchhoff, Thomas Nicolai (PIs) – Sociomantic Labs, Berlin Addressing the problem of scale (‘Big Data’) and the need for disciplinary renewal in media, cultural and communication studies. Computer-assisted cultural analysis: tracking, mapping, analysing blogs, twitter, ﬂickr, youtube as ‘networked publics’ Project blog: http://mappingonlinepublics.net/

theoretical framework

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication personal communicative ecologies constitute public communication.

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication personal communicative ecologies constitute public communication. baseline empirical questions

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication personal communicative ecologies constitute public communication. baseline empirical questions levels of activity? topics of interest? changes over time? relations with broader media ecology?

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication personal communicative ecologies constitute public communication. baseline empirical questions levels of activity? topics of interest? changes over time? relations with broader media ecology? advanced questions: cultural implications

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication personal communicative ecologies constitute public communication. baseline empirical questions levels of activity? topics of interest? changes over time? relations with broader media ecology? advanced questions: cultural implications do matters of shared concern activate new connections among different communities/networks?

theoretical framework “social media”: the convergence of user-created (or shared) content, online social networks, and communication personal communicative ecologies constitute public communication. baseline empirical questions levels of activity? topics of interest? changes over time? relations with broader media ecology? advanced questions: cultural implications do matters of shared concern activate new connections among different communities/networks? How do acute media ‘events’ transform the media ecology?

Tools Data Gathering Blogs: In-house crawler & database + export tools Twitter: Twapperkeeper - in-house crawler in development Data Processing Gawk – open source, multiplatform, programmable command-line tool for processing CSV documents Textual Analysis Leximancer – commercial (University of Queensland), multiplatform: extracts key concepts from large corpora of text, examines and visualises concept co-occurrence WordStat – commercial, PC-only textual analysis tool; generates concept co-occurrence data that can be exported for visualisation Visualisation Gephi – open source, multiplatform network visualisation tool

Analysis – Blogs

Blog Data Structure

Methods – Blogs

Overall Patterns of Activity (Jan.-Aug. 2009) From previous work by Bruns et al

Overall Patterns of Activity (Jan.-Aug. 2009) From previous work by Bruns et al New Sites Added

Overall Patterns of Activity (Jan.-Aug. 2009) From previous work by Bruns et al Bushfires New Sites Added

Overall Patterns of Activity (Jan.-Aug. 2009) From previous work by Bruns et al Bushfires Qld Election New Sites Added

Overall Patterns of Activity (Jan.-Aug. 2009) From previous work by Bruns et al Bushfires Budget Qld Election New Sites Added

Overall Patterns of Activity (Jan.-Aug. 2009) From previous work by Bruns et al Artefact Bushfires Budget Qld Election New Sites Added

Top Posters (Blogs and Opinion Columns) From previous work by Bruns et al

Key Themes in the (political) Blogosphere From previous work by Bruns et al 4-5 August 2009

Blog Network (between known blogs only) (17 July to 27 August 2010 | 3.4 million links | Node size: Indegree | See: http://mappingonlinepublics.net/2010/09/22/mapping-the-australian- blogosphere-some-more/) parenting politics food arts & crafts design and style

Methods – Twapperkeeper

Twapperkeeper Data Structure

Analysis – Twapperkeeper

#ausvotes: pa@erns of acBvity over Bme 17

#ausvotes elecBon themes 18

#masterchef @reply network size: indegree colour:  outdegree 19

#ausvotes @reply network size: indegree colour:  betweenness  centrality 20

#ausvotes keyword co‐occurrence 21

#thanks!

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Mapping Online Publics

by Jean Burgess

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