RELIGION, SOCIAL MEDIA AND
THE WEB ARCHIVE
Peter Webster
Webster Research and Consulting
@pj_webster / @WebsterRandC
websterresearchconsulting.com

Internet/Web Archive Studies
Internet Studies Web Archive Studies
Present-focussed Past-focussed
Data to order Dealing with traces
Data as data Data as artefact
Social-scientific ? Humanistic?

The web-archived Facebook
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/43188236/

The web-archived Facebook
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100614102751/http://www.facebo
ok.com/nickclegg

The web-archived Twitter
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100612011716/http://twitter.com/
nick_clegg/

Archiving: a common issue
Web 1.0 Social networks
Technical Databases, Javascript,
streaming media
… + password protection, social
relationships
Legal Copyright, defamation, data
protection
… + international context with
unclear ownership
Access Often permission based At discretion of provider
Organisational Many national web archives Not (yet) any open archives of
social network content

Rates of decay of shared
content
Using event-centric social media data
2009-12:
• after 12 months: 11% lost, 20% archived
• after 30 months: 27% lost, 41% archived
• or, loss of c 0.02% per day after 12 months
[Aldeen & Nelson (2012), http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.3026 ]

The web its own archive?
Open UK Web Archive 2004-13 comparison.
@anjacks0n http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/webarchive/2014/10/what-is-still-on-
the-web-after-10-years-of-archiving-.html

Common requirements
• national/international archiving
frameworks
• better partnerships between scholars &
archivists
• integration of archive provision for both
dataset and artefact

But also...
To reintegrate study of social networks
with that of the web, to understand:
• shared content outside social networks
• representation of social networks
elsewhere
• link structures between them

Religious organisations &
social media: issues
• 'official' participation in social networks
• rates of adoption
• denominational patterns of adoption
• patterns of integration in traditional web
estate

JISC UK Web Domain Dataset
(1996-2013)
• copy of Internet Archive holdings for .uk
• bought by JISC, held by British Library
• 60TB of data
• no direct access to content
• prototype search at webarchive.org.uk/shine
• derived datasets in public domain (including
UK Host Link Graph) at data.webarchive.org.uk

Two pilot enquiries, using UK
Host Link Graph (1996-2010)
Extracted subset of data: inbound links to a list of
social media domains (including major blog
platforms.), eg.
2008 | newsimg.bbc.co.uk | youtube.com | 45
2008 | archbishopofyork.org.uk | flickr.com | 1
2002 | secularism.org.uk | geocities.com | 1

Pilot Study 1. Rates of adoption:
evangelical churches
• Sample of 350 congregations linking to
Evangelical Alliance
• Hypothesis: that evangelicals quick to
embrace new means of evangelism

Rates of adoption: evangelical
churches
• 48% engaged with at least one social
media channel
• Many blogs:
bishopmike.wordpress.com
asbojesus.wordpress.com
ywamcarlisledtsasia2007-08.blogspot.co.uk
• 6% engage with Twitter, 13% with FB

Pilot Study 2: Rates of
adoption: creationism in UK
Creationism:
• anti-evolutionary account of human origins
• modern
• a minority feature of evangelicalism
• 2006: campaign around school science

Creationism in UK Host Link
Graph
Based on analysis of in-bound links to a
sample of hosts:
• noted by other creationists, secularist
campaigners
• Mostly ignored by mainstream media and the
academy
• … and by the bulk of evangelical churches
[ http://peterwebster.me/2014/11/18/reading-creationism-in-the-web-archive/ ]

A creationist visitor attraction

Creationist organisations &
social media: first recorded
links
One unusual early adopter, Noah's Ark Zoo
Farm
2006: flickr.com
2009: twitter.com (@Noahs_Ark_Zoo)
2010: facebook.com
( https://www.facebook.com/noahsarkzoo )

But most creationist sites
much less engaged
Links to:
Many bloggers (again)
YouTube (a few)
2008: biblicalcreation.org.uk, amen.org.uk
2009: biblicalcreationministries.org.uk,
truthinscience.org.uk
Twitter/FB
none (except Noah's Ark Zoo)

Next steps
• larger samples, both of social media
channels and creationist/evangelical hosts
• qualitative study of what the recorded links
represent in individual pages
• benchmarking rates of adoption against other
content types (eg. Roman Catholics, or
secularist/humanist sites)

QUESTIONS ?
Peter Webster
peter@websterresearchconsulting.com
@pj_webster / @WebsterRandC
peterwebster.me
websterresearchconsulting.com