This document discusses the promise and challenges of using social media data and big data analytics to study public discourse and online communities. It provides three key points: 1. Social media generates large amounts of user data that can provide new insights when analyzed at scale, but also raises ethical issues regarding user profiling and content ownership. 2. Twitter is a useful platform to study due to its large user base and public data, but hashtag analysis only captures part of discussions and multiple overlapping networks and public spheres exist. 3. Researchers need interdisciplinary skills to effectively analyze social media data but developing common methods and addressing precarity issues remains a challenge.

1. Social Media, Big Data,
and the Public Sphere
Associate Professor Axel Bruns
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
@snurb_dot_info | http://mappingonlinepublics.net/

2. THE PROMISE OF BIG 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

3. BIG DATA AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE(S)
• 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)
• New frameworks:
– Public spherules, issue publics, personal publics (Jan Schmidt):
multiple interlinked spaces in a complex media ecology

4. WHY TWITTER?
• Researching Twitter:
– Significant world-wide social network
– ~500 million accounts (but how many active?)
– Varied range of uses: from phatic communication to emergency
coordination
– Healthy third-party ecosystem (for now)
– Strong history of user innovation: @replies, #hashtags
– Flat and open network structure:
non-reciprocal following, public profiles by default
– Good API for gathering (big) data for research
– Ethical concerns comparatively limited

5. BEYOND HASHTAGS
• Publics on Twitter:
– Micro: @reply and retweet conversations
– Meso: follower/followee networks
– Macro: hashtag ‘communities’ (Bruns & Moe, forthcoming)
 Multiple overlapping publics / networks
• What drives their formation and dissipation?
• How do they interact and interweave?
• How are they interleaved with the wider media ecology?
• Twitter doesn’t contain publics: publics transcend Twitter

6. UNDERSTANDING TWITTER PUBLICS
• #hashtags:
– Useful coordinating mechanism for core discussion
– Relatively easy to capture and analyse
– Fails to capture non-hashtagged tweets about the topic
– Good case studies, but very little comparative work to date
• National / global Twittersphere maps:
– Crucial contextual baseline for #hashtag case studies
– Slow and laborious data gathering process, never complete
– Very long-term perspective, beyond most funded projects
– Indispensable for study of Twitter as a public space

7. #AUSVOTES (JULY-AUG. 2010): THEMES

8. #ROYALWEDDING (29 APR. 2011)

9. THE AUSTRALIAN TWITTERSPHERE?
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = outdegree, size = indegree

10. Real Estate
Jobs
Property
HR
Business
Parenting
THEMATIC CLUSTERS
Business Mums Craft
Design
Social Media Property Arts
Web
Creative Tech Food
Perth PR Wine
Marketing / PR Advertising
IT
Beer
Tech
Creative
Social
Design
ICTs
NGOs Fashion
Utilities
Farming Social Policy Beauty
Services
Agriculture Net Culture
Adelaide
Opinion Books Theatre
Greens News Literature Film Arts
Publishing
ALP
Hardline Progressives
News @KRuddMP
Conservatives
@JuliaGillard Radio
Conservatives TV Music
Journalists Triple J
Talkback
Dance
Breakfast TV
Hip Hop
Cycling Celebrities
Union
Evangelicals Swimming
NRL V8s
Football Teens
Christians
Cricket Teaching Hillsong
AFL e-Learning
Schools Jonas Bros.
Beliebers

11. #AUSPOL
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = #auspol tweets, size = indegree

12. #AUSVOTES
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = #ausvotes tweets, size = indegree

13. #ROYALWEDDING
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = #royalwedding tweets, size = indeg.

14. #MASTERCHEF
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = #masterchef tweets, size = indeg.

15. THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU URLS
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree

16. ABC.NET.AU URLS
Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = tweets with URLs, size = indegree

17. TWITTER AND/IN THE MEDIA ECOLOGY

18. ‘BIG DATA’ AND RESEARCH SKILLS
• Researchers need interdisciplinary skill sets:
– Media & communication to understand the media environment
– Maths and statistics to deal with ‘big data’
– Computer science to develop tools to process social media data
– Communication design to develop effective visualisations
– Writing and communication skills to communicate the results
– …
– Where do we find them?
(few people have such a diverse range of skills)
– How do we support their work?
(we’re only just developing our methods and tools)
– What is our strategy for dealing with precarity?
(sudden API changes, changing fortunes of platforms, …)

19. http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
@snurb_dot_info
@jeanburgess
@_StephenH
@DrTNitins
@timhighfield
@cdtavijit