Anita Greenhill, Rob Procter, Marta Cantijoch, Ben Lee, William Housley, Pete Burnap, Matt Williams, Adam Edwards, Alex Voss, University of Warwick, UK, 'Understanding the uses of social media in the mundane accomplishment of social resilience' presented at 'Communities in the Digital Age' International Symposium, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, 12 June 2013

1. Understanding the uses of social
media in the mundane
accomplishment of social resilience
Rob Procter, Anita Greenhill, Marta Cantijoch, Ben
Lee, William Housley, Pete Burnap, Matt Williams,
Adam Edwards, Alex Voss
See also:
cosmosproject.net @cosmos_project

2. Two case studies-
Manchester and
Cardiff
• Inner city (with an emphasis on
South Manchester in
Manchester case)
• Tweets gather from some 140
tweet accounts for a period of 8
weeks.
• Tweet accounts can be identified
according to categories
comprising: Police, Health
Organisations, City Council and
Agencies, Local Community
Organisations, Community
Activist and Active Individuals
living in the area, local and
regional Media, Commercial
Organisations, Culture and
Sports.

3. Both cases:
• Interviews with approx 12
individuals about their social
media and tweeting usage. A
cross section of groupings
identified from the accounts
identified.
• Information flows being
carried out and coded
according to tweet content.
• Network analysis of
interactions and evolving
topics of discussion for the
selected time frame.

4. The Study
• Explores the ‘negotiated
order’ of communities by
individual citizens, community
groups, public agencies and
institutions, voluntary
organisations, etc. at a time
when social media innovations
appear to offer new public fora
for contesting, challenging,
debating, aligning, organising,
disrupting and participating.

5. MCR Social Network Analysis
Degree Centrality Betweeness Centrality Closeness Centrality
@mcfc 1 1 1
@guardian 0.88 0.14 1
@itvnews 0.81 0.03 1
@youtube 0.76 0 0
@mennewsdesk 0.73 0.07 0.67
@hmrcgovuk 0.58 0.03 1
@oxfam 0.58 0.01 1
@mcrconfidential 0.57 0.02 1
@bbcradiomanc 0.55 0.01 1
@gmpolice 0.54 0 1
@nhsmanchester 0.51 0.25 0.71
@fcunitedmcr 0.5 0.01 1
@gmpmoston 0.49 0.09 0.3
@mancirishfest 0.44 0.02 0.46
@mancitycouncil 0.42 0.16 0.43

6. Preliminary from
Manchester:
• These metrics and visualisations
represent the retweet network
for both datasets (i.e. who
retweeted who). The degree
centrality score could be argued
to represent influence here, as
this represents the highest
retweeted accounts. The other
centrality scores represent the
proximity in the network to all
other nodes, which could be
argued to represent overall reach
of the user.

7. COSMOS Visualization
Filters
Metrics

8. CDF Social Network Analysis
Degree Centrality Betweeness Centrality Closeness Centrality
@cardiffcouncil 1 1 0.27
@swpolice 0.75 0.13 0.18
@swpeast 0.69 0.21 0.22
@fishat85 0.69 0.06 0.2
@vaughangething 0.68 0.54 0.31
@c3sc 0.67 0.02 0.27
@grangetownplaid 0.66 0.21 0.34
@kevinbrennanmp 0.66 0.18 0.25
@rcmamarkets 0.6 0.1 0.18
@theethicalchef 0.59 0.02 1
@luke4csp 0.56 0.07 0.26
@doughty4csp 0.56 0.08 0.31
@pontcannaranger 0.55 0.02 0.23
@lukenicholas87 0.51 0.32 0.22
@ashleygovier 0.5 0.12 0.31

9. COSMOS Visualization

10. To Summarise
• In the Cardiff dataset, 7 out of
top 10 accounts are local
government, law enforcement
and political.
• These are also present in
Manchester’s top 10. However
Manchester also includes two
football clubs in its top 10
mentions – but surprising, not
United and City, but City and
FC United (small club, big
cause). Cardiff’s football club-
Cardiff City isn't in top 10
mentions.
• In Manchester those who
tweet the most are: MCFC,
Youttube, (media) ITVnews,
MEN, Guardian. Highest re-
tweek is MCFC at 18300
• Then the police, commercial
and non commercial
organisations eg. Oxfam,
Almostfamous MCR.
• Followed by Manchester City
Council and other State lead
Institutions
• Individuals and local level
activist only start at re-tweet
levels of 2 or so.

11. To Consider
• While the major topics related
to a geographic boundary were:
crime, health, politics and the
environment. These were NOT
the defining topics of
identification embraced by those
interviewed.
• This raises questions about the
binding nature of the network as
a geographic bounded exchange
and the exchange of information
in community building and
information sharing.
• The ‘negotiated order’ is well
established, detailed and highly
respected and maintained.

12. Interviews reveal: in a Public Fora
Careful
• “I'm very careful about what I say
on there anyway, but I purposely
don't— For example, I never refer
to my husband by his name. He's
always 'hubby'. And it's things like
that. There are certain things that I
will and won't put on there.”
• “I especially won't take my iPhone
out if I'm going out drinking. You
know, I just know, do not tweet
because I don't need my work
colleagues and I don't need
members to be able to see what I
might be getting up to at 3 a.m. on
a Saturday.”
Conscious
• “So I'm very conscious that
anybody can see my tweets
and if it's not something
that I'd be willing to stand
up in a room of people and
say, then it won't get put
on.”

13. All expressed full awareness of the public nature of the
platform and the need to manage their usage.
• “We intentionally don't tweet
about certain issues. So for
example, today, Thatcher's
funeral, we would stay
completely and utterly away from
that. We don't get involved in
politics. We don't get involved in
... you know. The Boston
marathon, obviously it's tragic
what's happened there, but it's
not the right forum for us to
express any views on that. So we
keep it very mainstream. Just
because of who we are, we can't
be seen to be affiliated and we
try not to favour any of our
members above each other.”
• “Yeah. And also, I think Twitter
isn't a completely constant thing
in my life. I don't look at it at
weekends, generally. I tend to
view it as a weekday activity.”
• “We don't lock it down and
confine it too much because I
think, by doing that, you kill it. I
think it's got to be— As an
organisation, we do it very much
that you've got your own
common sense. If you do
something stupid, then you will
suffer the consequences of doing
something stupid. You've got to
take responsibility for your
actions.”

14. Location, detail and speed like
nowhere else
• “And it's because of the sort of speed of
information travelling and whatever, you
know, if it wasn't for Twitter, I would have
found out about that stuff through different
channels, but mostly likely it would have taken
longer. I think I was forwarded an email kind
of later on, but the instantaneousness of
community news changes the way that I
engage with those things.”

15. To Consider:
• While the major topics related
to a geographic boundary were:
crime, health, politics and the
environment. These were NOT
the defining topics of
identification embraced by those
interviewed.
• This raises questions about the
binding nature of the network as
a geographic bounded exchange
and the exchange of information
in community building and
information sharing.
• The ‘negotiated order’ is well
established, detailed and highly
respected and maintained.

16. Call for
papers:
• Workshop on Analyzing Social
Media for the Benefit of
Society: Society 2.0
• Third International Conference
on Social Computing and its
Applications
• Sep 30–Oct 2 2013,
Karlsruhe, Germany
• Details of topics and
submission procedures
at http://socialcloud.aifb.uni-
karlsruhe.de/confs/SCA2013/W
orkshops.php