Presentation at #diata11, the Düsseldorf Interdisciplinary Workshop on Twitter Analysis, 14-15 September 2011

1. Evolution
of News
in Networked
Publics
Axel Maireder, University of Vienna
DIATA 11, 14 - 15 September 2011, Düsseldorf

2. 02 of 29
Traditional
News Diffusion
Research

3. 03 of 29
Death of Sen. Robert Taft
CC:
US
PUBLIC
DOMAIN
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/d/dc/Robert_a_taft.jpg
(Larsen/Hill 1954)

4. 04 of 29
Kennedy Assasination
(Greenberg 1964)
CC:
JFK
Assasination
Zapruder
Film
http://www.Llickr.com/photos/e-­‐strategycom/1053257131/

5. 05 of 29
9/11 Attacks
(Rogers/Seidl 2010)
CC:
Mate
Eric
J.
Tilford.
http://www.Llickr.com/photos/slagheap/132105258/

6. 06 of 29
News Diffusion Research
• Singular news events
• Asking: How fast do news
spread and through which
channel?

7. 07 of 29
News Diffusion Research
• Telephone interviews at
different times after the event
• Asking if they knew and
where they knew it from

8. 08 of 29
News Diffusion Research
Diffusion curves
(Rogers/Seidl 2010) (Singhal et al. 2011)

9. 09 of 29
Factors of diffusion
• Channels (Basil / Brown 1994, Rogers 2000)
• News salience (Gantz et al. 1976)
• Personal relevance (Gantz & Trenholm 1979)

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Problems:
• News itself stays virtually
unchanged
• News detached from history
• Based on the basic
Two-Step-Flow model

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News evolve over time
• New information may be added
• New perpectives may be added
• Frames may change

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News are embedded in
ongoing discourses
• Stories have a history
• Stories have contexts
• History and context shape story
evolution

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News evolve in
networked publics
• Different communication
channels
• Different sources
• Kind of „Multi-Step-Flow“?

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Questions
• Diffusion of News through
Social Media?
• Linkage btw. Press Releases, News
Media, Blogs, UGC Platforms &
Social Media?
• News evolution in News Media vs.
Social Media?

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Im et al. (2010)
• Two cases in Korea
• Content analysis of everything
online related to story
• Coded type of transformative
activity to news story

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Twitter and News
• Important source for News
(Pew Research 2010, CMRC 2011)
• Major driver of Traffic to News
Websites (Pew Research 2011)
• Heavily linking to News Media
(Maireder 2011)

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Our Research Design
‣ Tracking story development
for ~72 hours
‣ Everything online
‣ Links / Sources
‣ Story Aspects

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Cases
๏ News discussed in
Austria only
๏ First source clearly assignable
๏ Should lead to a widespread,
national discussion

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Items / Sources
๏ Press Releases
from Austrian
๏ Online News Media Articles Press Agency‘s
๏ TV / Radio News Clips database
๏ Blog Entries
๏ Tweets from Sensemetric‘s
web crawler
๏ Other Web Resources

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Homogenizing
๏ Channel
๏ Time published (hourly)
๏ Hyperlinks extracted, named
sources noted

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Coding
✦ Aspects of the Story
‣ Story development (events) (15)
‣ Direct Background / Context (6)
‣ Further aspects / general commentary (5)
✦ Type of Text (,objective‘ > commentarial)

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Case 1: Uwe Scheuch‘s conviction
CC:
Georg
Holzer,
http://farm7.static.Llickr.com/6145/6001226817_782c30783b_b.jpg

23. 23 of 29
Material 2000
Keyword „Scheuch“
1500
Number of items
by source
1000
Twitter
UGC 500
Press Releases
TV / Radio
Newspaper 0

24. 24 of 29
320
280 Tweets / Hour
240
First
Reac<ons
by
FP
Poli<cians Total: 1578
200
Gerhard
Dörfler
(Governor
of
Carinthia)
160 TV
Interview
120
FP
ABack
on
Jurisprudence
VP
halts
coali<on
in
Carinthia
80
40
0
day 1 day 2 day 3

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Where do Tweets Link to?
Mass Media Press Releases
TV/Radio User Generated
other
60
45
30
15
0
day 1 day 2 day 3
N=1578

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What do they report/talk about?
First
Reac<ons
Gerhard
Dörfler
80 by
FP
Poli<cians FP
Assembly
(Governor
of
Carinthia)
TV
Interview
60
40 Share of all Tweets
News (story development)
20 Background / Context
Further / Commentary
0
11h 12h 13h 14h 15h 16h 17h 18h 19h 20h 21h 22h
200 Total Number of Tweets
150
100
50
0
11h 12h 13h 14h 15h 16h 17h 18h 19h 20h 21h 22h N=1179

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Other first findings
- Twitter links to News Media
contentrated to a few articles
- Twitter adding lot‘s of context/
history; f.e. old press releases:
„Revenge of the archive“
- Lot‘s of general commentary

28. 28 of 29
Two more cases to follow
Further analysis:
• Aspects / Link Targets
• Linkage patterns (mapping)
• Combined analysis of cases

29. 29 - comleted
Thanks.
Axel Maireder, University of Vienna
axel.maireder@univie.ac.at
twitter.com/axelmaireder
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