The Digital Media Research Centre at QUT conducts research on how society adapts to digital media technologies. Prof. Axel Bruns leads research on social media analytics and big social data. This includes mapping the Australian Twittersphere to identify influencers and study topics like political engagement and crisis communication. Over 4 million Australian Twitter accounts have been identified and clustered into groups like politics, sports and entertainment. Analysis of these clusters shows some act as echo chambers while others disseminate information more widely. Future research will explore multi-platform data and critical analysis of platform algorithms and their impact.
Evaluating the Utility of Geo-referenced Twitter Data as a Source of Reliable...Guy Lansley
Evaluating the Utility of Geo-referenced Twitter Data as a Source of Reliable Footfall Insight
Guy Lansley, UCL
Presented at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL. (10/04/2014)
The growth of social media over the last decade has revolutionized the way individuals interact and industries conduct business. Individuals produce data at an unprecedented rate by interacting, sharing, and consuming content through social media. Understanding and processing this new type of data to glean actionable patterns presents challenges and opportunities for interdisciplinary research, novel algorithms, and tool development. Social Media Mining integrates social media, social network analysis, and data mining to provide a convenient and coherent platform for students, practitioners, researchers, and project managers to understand the basics and potentials of social media mining. It introduces the unique problems arising from social media data and presents fundamental concepts, emerging issues, and effective algorithms for network analysis and data mining. Suitable for use in advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses as well as professional short courses, the text contains exercises of different degrees of difficulty that improve understanding and help apply concepts, principles, and methods in various scenarios of social media mining.
Details at: http://dmml.asu.edu/smm/
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media Mining - Chapter 6 (Community Analysis)SocialMediaMining
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media Mining - Chapter 10 (Behavior Analytics)SocialMediaMining
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media Mining - Chapter 9 (Recommendation in Social Media)SocialMediaMining
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media in Australia: A ‘Big Data’ Perspective on TwitterAxel Bruns
Invited presentation at the University of Melbourne, 4 April 2017.
Twitter research to date has focussed mainly on the study of isolated events, as described for example by specific hashtags or keywords relating to elections, natural disasters, public events, and other moments of heightened activity in the network. This limited focus is determined in part by the limitations placed on large-scale access to Twitter data by Twitter, Inc. itself. This research presents the first ever comprehensive study of a national Twittersphere as an entity in its own right. It examines the structure of the follower network amongst some 4 million Australian Twitter accounts and the dynamics of their day-to-day activities, and explores the Australian Twittersphere’s engagement with specific recent events.
Researching Social Media – Big Data and Social Media AnalysisFarida Vis
Researching Social Media – Big Data and Social Media Analysis, presentation for the Social Media for Researchers: A Sheffield Universities Social Media Symposium, 23 September 2014
Evaluating the Utility of Geo-referenced Twitter Data as a Source of Reliable...Guy Lansley
Evaluating the Utility of Geo-referenced Twitter Data as a Source of Reliable Footfall Insight
Guy Lansley, UCL
Presented at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL. (10/04/2014)
The growth of social media over the last decade has revolutionized the way individuals interact and industries conduct business. Individuals produce data at an unprecedented rate by interacting, sharing, and consuming content through social media. Understanding and processing this new type of data to glean actionable patterns presents challenges and opportunities for interdisciplinary research, novel algorithms, and tool development. Social Media Mining integrates social media, social network analysis, and data mining to provide a convenient and coherent platform for students, practitioners, researchers, and project managers to understand the basics and potentials of social media mining. It introduces the unique problems arising from social media data and presents fundamental concepts, emerging issues, and effective algorithms for network analysis and data mining. Suitable for use in advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses as well as professional short courses, the text contains exercises of different degrees of difficulty that improve understanding and help apply concepts, principles, and methods in various scenarios of social media mining.
Details at: http://dmml.asu.edu/smm/
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media Mining - Chapter 6 (Community Analysis)SocialMediaMining
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media Mining - Chapter 10 (Behavior Analytics)SocialMediaMining
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media Mining - Chapter 9 (Recommendation in Social Media)SocialMediaMining
R. Zafarani, M. A. Abbasi, and H. Liu, Social Media Mining: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Free book and slides at http://socialmediamining.info/
Social Media in Australia: A ‘Big Data’ Perspective on TwitterAxel Bruns
Invited presentation at the University of Melbourne, 4 April 2017.
Twitter research to date has focussed mainly on the study of isolated events, as described for example by specific hashtags or keywords relating to elections, natural disasters, public events, and other moments of heightened activity in the network. This limited focus is determined in part by the limitations placed on large-scale access to Twitter data by Twitter, Inc. itself. This research presents the first ever comprehensive study of a national Twittersphere as an entity in its own right. It examines the structure of the follower network amongst some 4 million Australian Twitter accounts and the dynamics of their day-to-day activities, and explores the Australian Twittersphere’s engagement with specific recent events.
Researching Social Media – Big Data and Social Media AnalysisFarida Vis
Researching Social Media – Big Data and Social Media Analysis, presentation for the Social Media for Researchers: A Sheffield Universities Social Media Symposium, 23 September 2014
Types of Polarisation and Their Operationalisation in Digital and Social Medi...Axel Bruns
Paper by Axel Bruns, Tariq Choucair, Katharina Esau, Sebastian Svegaard, and Samantha Vilkins, presented at the Association of Internet Researchers conference, Philadelphia, 18 Oct. 2023.
Determining the Drivers and Dynamics of Partisanship and Polarisation in Onli...Axel Bruns
Paper by Axel Bruns, Katharina Esau, Tariq Choucair, Sebastian Svegaard, and Samantha Vilkins, presented at the ECREA Political Communication conference in Berlin, 1 Sep. 2023.
Towards a New Empiricism: Polarisation across Four DimensionsAxel Bruns
Paper by Axel Bruns, Tariq Choucair, Katharina Esau, Sebastian Svegaard, and Samantha Vilkins, presented at the IAMCR 2023 conference, Lyon, 9-13 July 2023.
The Anatomy of Virality: How COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Spread across Socia...Axel Bruns
Keynote by Axel Bruns, with Edward Hurcombe and Stephen Harrington, presented at the International Center for Journalists' Empowering the Truth Summit, 23 Feb. 2023.
A Platform Policy Implementation Audit of Actions against Russia’s State-Cont...Axel Bruns
Paper by Sofya Glazunova, Anna Ryzhova, Axel Bruns, Silvia Ximena Montaña-Niño, Arista Beseler, and Ehsan Dehghan, presented at the International Communication Association conference, Toronto, 29 May 2023.
The Filter in Our (?) Heads: Digital Media and PolarisationAxel Bruns
Invited presentation in a seminar series organised by the Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance at the University of Canberra, the QUT Digital Media Research Centre, and the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.
Gatewatching 5: Weaponising Newssharing: ‘Fake News’ and Other MalinformationAxel Bruns
Lecture 5 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age.
This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets.
Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures.
Reading for this lecture:
Bruns, A., Harrington, S., & Hurcombe, E. (2021). Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories: Tracing Misinformation Trajectories from the Fringes to the Mainstream. In M. Lewis, E. Govender, & K. Holland (Eds.), Communicating COVID-19: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 229–249). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79735-5_12
Gatewatching 10: New(s) Publics in the Public SphereAxel Bruns
Lecture 10 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age.
This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets.
Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures.
Reading for this lecture:
Bruns, A. (2018). New(s) Publics in the Public Sphere. Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 8. Peter Lang.
Gatewatching 4: Random Acts of Gatewatching: Everyday Newssharing PracticesAxel Bruns
Lecture 4 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age.
This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets.
Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures.
Reading for this lecture:
Bruns, A. (2018). Random Acts of Gatewatching: Everyday Newssharing Practices. Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 4. Peter Lang.
Gatewatching 11: Echo Chambers? Filter Bubbles? Reviewing the EvidenceAxel Bruns
Lecture 11 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age.
This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets.
Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures.
Reading for this lecture:
Bruns, A. (2022). Echo Chambers? Filter Bubbles? The Misleading Metaphors That Obscure the Real Problem. In M. Pérez-Escolar & J. M. Noguera-Vivo (Eds.), Hate Speech and Polarization in Participatory Society (pp. 33–48). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003109891-4
Gatewatching 1: Introduction: What’s So Different about Journalism Today?Axel Bruns
Lecture 1 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age.
This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets.
Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures.
Reading for this lecture:
Bruns, A. (2018). Introduction. Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 1. Peter Lang.
Lecture 8 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age.
This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets.
Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures.
Reading for this lecture:
Bruns, A. (2018). Hybrid News Coverage: Liveblogs. Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 7. Peter Lang.
Social media refers to online platforms and tools that enable users to create, share, and exchange information, ideas, and content in virtual communities and networks. These platforms have revolutionized the way people communicate, interact, and consume information. Here are some key aspects and descriptions of social media:
The Challenges of Good Governance and Project Implementation in Nigeria: A Re...AJHSSR Journal
ABSTRACT : This study reveals that systemic corruption and other factors including poor leadership,
leadership recruitment processes, ethnic and regional politics, tribalism and mediocrity, poor planning, and
variation of project design have been the causative factors that undermine projects implementation in postindependence African states, particularly in Nigeria. The study, thus, argued that successive governments of
African states, using Nigeria as a case study, have been deeply engrossed in this obnoxious practice that has
undermined infrastructure sector development as well as enthroned impoverishment and mass poverty in these
African countries. This study, therefore, is posed to examine the similarities in causative factors, effects and
consequences of corruption and how it affects governance, projects implementation and national growth. To
achieve this, the study adopted historical research design which is qualitative and explorative in nature. The
study among others suggests that the governments of developing countries should shun corruption and other
forms of obnoxious practices in order to operate effective and efficient systems that promote good governance
and ensure there is adequate projects implementation which are the attributes of a responsible government and
good leadership. Policy makers should also prioritize policy objectives and competence to ensure that policies
are fully implemented within stipulated time frame.
KEYWORDS: Developing Countries, Nigeria, Government, Project Implementation, Project Failure
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Exploring Factors Affecting the Success of TVET-Industry Partnership: A Case ...AJHSSR Journal
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to explore factors affecting the success of TVET-industry
partnerships. A case study design of the qualitative research method was used to achieve this objective. For the
study, one polytechnic college of Oromia regional state, and two industries were purposively selected. From the
sample polytechnic college and industries, a total of 17 sample respondents were selected. Out of 17
respondents, 10 respondents were selected using the snowball sampling method, and the rest 7 respondents were
selected using the purposive sampling technique. The qualitative data were collected through an in-depth
interview and document analysis. The data were analyzed using thematic approaches. The findings revealed that
TVET-industry partnerships were found weak. Lack of key stakeholder‟s awareness shortage of improved
training equipment and machines in polytechnic colleges, absence of trainee health insurance policy, lack of
incentive mechanisms for private industries, lack of employer industries involvement in designing and
developing occupational standards, and preparation of curriculum were some of the impediments of TVETindustry partnership. Based on the findings it was recommended that the Oromia TVET bureau in collaboration
with other relevant concerned regional authorities and TVET colleges, set new strategies for creating strong
awareness for industries, companies, and other relevant stakeholders on the purpose and advantages of
implementing successful TVET-industry partnership. Finally, the Oromia regional government in collaboration
with the TVET bureau needs to create policy-supported incentive strategies such as giving occasional privileges
of duty-free import, tax reduction, and regional government recognition awards based on the level of partnership
contribution to TVET institutions in promoting TVET-industry partnership.
KEY WORDS: employability skills, industries, and partnership
Enhance your social media strategy with the best digital marketing agency in Kolkata. This PPT covers 7 essential tips for effective social media marketing, offering practical advice and actionable insights to help you boost engagement, reach your target audience, and grow your online presence.
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How social media marketing helps businesses in 2024.pdfpramodkumar2310
Social media marketing refers to the process of utilizing social media platforms to promote products, services, or brands. It involves creating and sharing valuable content, engaging with followers, analyzing data, and running targeted advertising campaigns.
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“To be integrated is to feel secure, to feel connected.” The views and experi...AJHSSR Journal
ABSTRACT: Although a significant amount of literature exists on Morocco's migration policies and their
successes and failures since their implementation in 2014, there is limited research on the integration of subSaharan African children into schools. This paperis part of a Ph.D. research project that aims to fill this gap. It
reports the main findings of a study conducted with migrant children enrolled in two public schools in Rabat,
Morocco, exploring how integration is defined by the children themselves and identifying the obstacles that they
have encountered thus far. The following paper uses an inductive approach and primarily focuses on the
relationships of children with their teachers and peers as a key aspect of integration for students with a migration
background. The study has led to several crucial findings. It emphasizes the significance of speaking Colloquial
Moroccan Arabic (Darija) and being part of a community for effective integration. Moreover, it reveals that the
use of Modern Standard Arabic as the language of instruction in schools is a source of frustration for students,
indicating the need for language policy reform. The study underlines the importanceof considering the
children‟s agency when being integrated into mainstream public schools.
.
KEYWORDS: migration, education, integration, sub-Saharan African children, public school
Non-Financial Information and Firm Risk Non-Financial Information and Firm RiskAJHSSR Journal
ABSTRACT: This research aims to examine how ESG disclosure and risk disclosure affect the total risk of
companies. Using cross section data from 355 companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange, data regarding
ESG disclosure and risk was collected. In this research, ESG and risk disclosures are measured based on content
analysis using GRI 4 guidelines for ESG disclosures and COSO ERM for risk disclosures. Using multiple
regression, it is concluded that only risk disclosure can reduce the company's total risk, while ESG disclosure
cannot affect the company's total risk. This shows that only risk disclosure is relevant in determining a
company's total risk.
KEYWORDS: ESG disclosure, risk disclosure, firm risk
Non-Financial Information and Firm Risk Non-Financial Information and Firm Risk
Social Media Analytics Research at the QUT Digital Media Research Centre
1. Social Media Analytics Research
at the QUT Digital Media Research Centre
Prof. Axel Bruns
ARC Future Fellow
Digital Media Research Centre
Queensland University of Technology
a.bruns@qut.edu.au – @snurb_dot_info
2. QUT Digital Media Research Centre
The Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) conducts world-leading
research that helps society understand and adapt to the social,
cultural and economic transformations associated with digital media
technologies, and trains the researchers of tomorrow.
For more, see: http://www.qut.edu.au/research/dmrc
6. The Promise of Big Social Data
• Social media and big data:
– Substantial growth in social media usage
– User activity generates data and metadata
– Readily accessible through APIs
– New tools for processing and visualising big data at scale
• Emergence of social media analytics:
– Large-scale tracking of public user activities
– ‘Trending topics’, user sentiment, network influencers
– Scholarly and commercial research
– A ‘computational turn’ towards the digital humanities (David Berry)
– Ethical concerns around profiling and content ownership
7. Big Data and Society
• New methodologies:
– Empirical, large-scale, real-time investigation
– Data-led, comprehensive evaluation rather than small-scale sampling of public
communication
– But also: combined quantitative/qualitative approaches
– Not studying the Internet, but studying society with the Internet (Richard Rogers)
• Applications:
– Political engagement, especially during elections, crises, scandals
– Crisis communication during natural and human-made disasters
– Engagement with mainstream media: watching, reading, sharing, …
– Brand communication, especially during brand crises
– Identification of earthquakes (USGS), tracking of epidemics (Google)
– …
11. Big Data, Rare Data?
• The political economy of social media research:
– API-based data access is shaped to privilege certain approaches
– Research funding is easier to obtain for specific, limited purposes
– Longitudinal, ‘big’ data access requires ongoing, substantial funding and infrastructure
– Exploratory, data-driven research is difficult to sell to most funding bodies
– Also related to divergent resources available to different scholarly disciplines
• Most ‘difficult’ large-scale social media research is conducted by Facebook /
Twitter and commercial research institutes
12. Social Media and Beyond
• Facebook, Twitter:
– Useful but highly particular areas of online activity
– Not necessarily generalisable to overall activity patterns
– Current research approaches and API limitations introduce further biases
• E.g. publics on Twitter:
– Micro: @reply and retweet conversations
– Meso: follower/followee networks
– Macro: #hashtag ‘communities’ (Bruns & Moe, 2014)
• Key needs in Twitter research:
– Understand how hashtags are situated in a wider communicative ecology on Twitter
– Document the day-to-day uses of Twitter, beyond and outside hashtags
– Trace the dynamics of Twitter as a platform for everyday quasi-private, interpersonal,
and/or public communication
– Track the impact of social and technological changes on these uses
14. The Australian Twittersphere
• Twitter in Australia:
– Strong take-up since 2009
– Centred around 25-55 age range, urban, educated, affluent users (but gradually broadening)
– Significant role in crisis communication, political communication, audience engagement, …
• Mapping the Twittersphere:
– Long-term project to identify all Australian Twitter accounts
– First iteration: snowball crawl of follower/followee networks
• Starting with key hashtag populations (#auspol, #spill, …)
• Map of ~1m accounts in early 2012
– Second iteration: full crawl of global Twitter ID numberspace through to Sep. 2013 (~870m accounts)
– Third iteration: full crawl of global Twitter ID numberspace through to Feb. 2016 (~1.4b accounts)
• Filtering by description, location, timezone fields: identifiably Australian cities, states, timezones, etc.
• 4 million Australian accounts identified (by Feb. 2016)
• Retrieval of their follower/followee lists
– Continuous gathering of their public tweets
• Capturing ~1.3m new tweets per day
17. Mapping the Australian Userbase
• Mapping the Twittersphere:
– Filtered to include only accounts with (followers + followees) >= 1000
• ~255k accounts, 61m follower/followee connections within this group
– Mapped using Gephi Force Atlas 2 algorithm (LinLog mode, scaling 0.00001, gravity 1.0)
• Force-directed visualisation: closely interconnected groups of accounts will form clusters in the network
• Clusters in the Twittersphere:
– Identification of clusters using the Louvain community detection algorithm (resolutions 0.5 and 0.25)
– Qualitative interpretation of clusters themes based on high-degree nodes in each cluster
• Applications:
– Combined analysis of network structures and tweeting activities
– Evaluation of potential and actual information flows across the network
– Comparative benchmarking of clusters across different markers
18. The Australian Twittersphere, 2016
4m known Australian accounts
Network of follower connections
Filtered for degree ≥1000
255k nodes (6.4%), 61m edges
Edges not shown in graph
20. 4m known Australian accounts
Network of follower connections
Filtered for degree ≥1000
255k nodes (6.4%), 61m edges
Edges not shown in graph
Clusters
Teen Culture
Aspirational
Sports
Netizens
Arts & Culture
Politics
Television
Fashion
Popular Music
Food & Drinks
Agriculture Activism
Porn
Education
Cycling
News &
Generic
Hard Right
Progressive
South
Australia
Celebrities
Horse Racing
36. Tweets per Cluster (Average)
Colour scale: yellow to red
Non-tweeting accounts in grey
Louvain modularity resolution 0.5
Average over tweeting accounts only
48. Future Research Perspectives
• The end of the beginning:
– Social media analytics now widely utilised (but still poorly understood and operationalised)
– Substantial innovation in powerful tools and methods (but more in computer than social sciences)
– Broad range of mainstream commercial solutions (but often black boxes with dubious assumptions)
– Platform providers offering various data products (but unreliable and at inflated prices)
• Next steps:
– Beyond simplistic analytics (hashtags, keywords, text-based content)
– Towards (post)demographic perspectives based on interest profiles
– Multi-platform and cross-platform user and information flows
– Critical analysis of roles played by platform algorithms and social bots
• Key concerns:
– Susceptibility to commercial and political interference
– ‘Fake news’, ‘echo chambers’, ‘filter bubbles’, etc.
– Exclusion of independent scholarly researchers through access and pricing policies
– Long-term commercial viability of leading platforms