Short talk given at Perth Georabble 6 for Big Data Week. (slightly edited slides from original presentation)

1. BIG DATA +
TWITTER
WHAT WE LEARN FROM TWEETS,
HASHTAG USE, @MENTIONS, RETWEETS,
AND RESOURCE-SHARING ON TWITTER
DR TIM HIGHFIELD (CCI; QUT+CURTIN)

2. WHY TWITTER?
POPULAR
PUBLIC
SHORT
IMMEDIATE
SPREADABLE
TRACEABLE
PERFORMATIVE
INTERACTIVE
REACTIVE
MOBILE
MULTI-CONTEXT

3. HOW
OPEN-SOURCE DATA CAPTURE
(YOURTWAPPERKEEPER)
IN-HOUSE PROCESSING SCRIPTS
(GAWK)
NETWORK VISUALISATION
(GEPHI)

4. THE AUSTRALIAN
TWITTERSPHERE
Source:
Bruns, Burgess, and
Highfield (under
review), ‘A ‘Big Data’
Approach to Mapping
the Australian
Twittersphere’.

5. #AUSPOL +
#AUSVOTES
Source:
Bruns, Burgess, and
Highfield (under
review), ‘A ‘Big Data’
Approach to Mapping
the Australian
Twittersphere’.
Distribution of users whose tweets
contain #auspol or #ausvotes on
the overall Twittersphere map

6. @sunriseon7
@couriermail
@612brisbane
@QPSmedia
@abcnews
QUEENSLAND FLOODS
(2011)
Source:
Bruns, Burgess, Crawford, and Shaw
(2012), #qldfloods and @QPSMedia:
Crisis Communication on Twitter in
the 2011 South East Queensland
Floods [report]:
http://cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf
Connections through #qldfloods tweets (coloured
for retweets/@mentions of major media and
emergency accounts)
Types of tweet per day

7. ARAB SPRING:
#EGYPT (2011)
Source:
Bruns, Highfield, and
Burgess (forthcoming),
‘The Arab Spring and
Social Media
Audiences: English
and Arabic Twitter
Users and Their
Networks’. American
Behavioral Scientist.
Connections through tweets
containing #egypt, based on
language script
Left: 1-28 February
Right: 15 June-15 September

8. Albania
Malta
Serbia
Ireland
Jedward
Spain
Human Rights
France
Italy
Greece
Turkey
Sweden
UK
EUROVISION 2012
(GLOBAL)
Source:
Highfield, Harrington, and Bruns (2013).
‘Twitter as a Technology for Audiencing
and Fandom: The #Eurovision
phenomenon’. Information,
Communication & Society, 16(3), 315-
339.
@mentions and retweets from
#eurovision tweets
May 2012

9. TOUR DE FRANCE
2012 (GLOBAL)
Source:
Highfield (forthcoming). ‘Following the
yellow jersey: Tweeting the Tour de
France’. Twitter and Society (edited
collection)
@mentions and
retweets from #tdf
tweets
July 2012

10. WA ELECTION
(2013)
Connections through tweets
mentioning /from WA election
candidates, politicians, political
parties
Connections only
between
candidate/politician/
party accounts

11. OCCUPY OAKLAND
(2012)
Source:
Croeser and Highfield (2012). ‘#oo
activism: Uses of Twitter within the
Occupy Oakland movement’
[conference paper]
Connections through tweets
containing #oo
10-13 February 2012
Connections through tweets
containing #oo and #ows
10-13 February 2012

12. BIG TWITTER DATA
LIMITS OF ACCESS, TERMS OF USE
LIMITED USE OF FEATURES,
PRACTICES NOT UNIVERSAL
TOO MUCH DATA? NOT ENOUGH DATA?
IMPORTANT INFORMATION INTO
WIDER SOCIAL MEDIA USES
SUPPORTED BY FURTHER ANALYSIS,
ADDITIONAL METHODS