Informer-Meformer CSCW Presentation

Is It Really About Me? Message Content in Social Awareness Streams Mor Naaman, Jeffrey Boase, Chih-Hui Lai* 02/09/2010 CSCW Conference

What is Twitter?
Popular social media service launched in 2007, with 19.1 millions user in Dec. 2009
Users posts short messages -- 140 characters, maximum
the “follow-ship” relationships
Asymmetric

Social Awareness Streams (SAS)
Characteristics of SAS
Public or semi-public nature of messages (not one-on-one)
Messages are short, consumed in streams
Online personal networks are articulated; networks structure communication
Twitter as a SAS model
By identifying Twitter as a type of communication system, results of this research can potentially be generalized to other similar platforms

Research Questions
RQ1 : What types of messages are commonly posted and how does message type relate to other variables?
RQ2: What are the differences between users in terms of the types and diversity of messages that they usually post?
RQ3 : How are these differences between users’ content practices related to other user characteristics?

Analysis: Qualitative + Quantitative Approaches
Why qualitative coding?
No existing studies have created a definitive classification of Twitter messages
Twitter is a new mode of communication
A grounded approach to derive message categories
See paper for details

Coding Scheme Code Example(s) Information Sharing (IS) “ 15 Impressive and Beautiful Uses of WordPress <URL REMOVED>” Opinions/Complaints (OC) “ Go Aussie $ go!” “ Illmatic= greatest rap album ever” Statements and Random Thoughts (RT) “ The sky is blue in the winter here” ” I miss New York but I love LA...” Me now (ME) “ tired and upset” “ just enjoyed speeding around my lawn on my John Deere. Hehe :)” Other categories See paper for details

Method
Data collection
Using Twitter’s (API) , randomly selected ‘active, personal users’, N = 350
Code 10 messages from each user

RQ1: Message Categories on Twitter
me now ( ME , 41% of all messages coded), random thoughts ( RT, 25%), opinions/complaints ( OC , 24%), information sharing ( IS , 22%)
Code Information Sharing (IS) Self Promotion (SP) Opinions/Complaints (OC) Statements and Random Thoughts (RT) Me now (ME) Question to followers (QF) Presence Maintenance (PM) Anecdote (me) (AM) Anecdote (others) (AO)

RQ1: Message Type and Other Variables
Females are more likely to post “ me now ” messages (M=45% of a user’s messages) than males (M=37%) t(344)=3.12, p<0.005
51% of mobile-posted messages are “ me now ” messages, compared to the 37% of “me now” messages posted from non-mobile applications
chi square=49.7, p<.0001

RQ2: User Clusters by Message Type
Cluster analysis was used to identify two clusters of users:
Informers (20% of users), Meformers (80% of users)
Both informers and meformers engage in different types of message activity

RQ3: How Users are Different?
Informers are better connected to friends and followers than meformers
Informers are more conversational: have a higher proportion of mentions of other users in their messages
Informers Meformers Friends (medians) 131 61 Followers (medians) 112 42

Summary of Key Findings
Four major categories of messages on Twitter:
me now (41% of all messages coded) , information sharing (22%) , opinions (24%), random statements (25%)
Gender and device use
Females are more likely to post “me now” messages
“ Me now” messages are likely to be sent by mobile devices
Users are of two kinds :
Informers (20% of users), Meformers (80% of users)
Informers are better connected to friends and followers than meformers

Discussion and Implications
Meformers engage in self-focused messages
People may use Twitter to engage in different ways of self-expression, and through which initiate social interaction (phatic communion---see ICA paper)
Informers engage in use of mentions and have more social contacts
People may use Twitter to send/receive potentially valuable information directly, and through which maintain and build relationships

Thank you!
Any questions?
Mor Naaman, Jeffrey Boase, Chih-Hui Lai*
{ mor, jboase, chihhui}@rutgers.edu

Informer-Meformer CSCW Presentation

by mor on Feb 12, 2010

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