John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, presentation as part of the Digital Studies Fellowship. May 14, 2015

1. THE DIGITAL TRACES
OF USER-GENERATED
CONTENT:
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA DATA MAY BECOME THE
HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE FUTURE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, MAY 14TH, 2015
DR. KATRIN WELLER
GESIS – LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FÜR SOZIALWISSENSCHAFTEN
JOHN W. KLUGE FELLOWSHIP IN DIGITAL STUDIES, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WWW.KATRINWELLER.DE ● KATRIN.WELLER@GESIS.ORG ● @KWELLE

2. 2

3. 3
SERIOUSLY? DO THEY NOT REALIZE THAT
99% OF TWEETS ARE WORTHLESS BABBLE
THAT READ SOMETHING LIKE
‘JUST WOKE UP. GOING TO STARBUCKS
NOW. GETTING LATTE.’
READER’S COMMENT FOUND IN THE COMMENT SECTION FOR GROSS, D. (2010, APRIL 14). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TO ARCHIVE YOUR TWEETS. CNN.
RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://EDITION.CNN.COM/2010/TECH/04/14/LIBRARY.CONGRESS.TWITTER/, RETRIEVED NOVEMBER 19.
PHOTOS: HTTPS://WWW.FLICKR.COM/SEARCH/?TEXT=COFFEE&LICENSE=4%2C5%2C6%2C9%2C10

4. SOCIAL MEDIA AND
USER-GENERATED CONTENT
4

5. 5
2006

6. 6
2011

7. 8
WORTHLESS BABBLE?
POINTLESS BABBLE?
Kelly, R. (2009). Twitter Study. Pear Analytics, retrieved from http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf

8. BUT…
9

9. 10
INFORMATION ABOUT
EVERYDAY LIFE

10. https://twitter.com/BarackObama

11. SOCIAL MEDIA IS
AFFECTING DISCOURSES
AND EVENTS
12

12. #egypt
#gezi
#furgeson
#jesuischarlie
#occupy
#qldfloods
#royalwedding
#olympics
#election2012
…

13. (SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
INTERACTING WITH
HISTORICAL
SOURCES/PLACES)
14

14. 15
SOCIAL MEDIA
VS.
TRADITIONAL SOURCES

15. 16
SIMILAR CONTENT
http://asp.tacticalgear.com/

16. 17
SIMILAR CONCEPTS
http://storycorps.org/
Oral History vs. Crowdsourcing?

17. NEW FORMATS
18

18. 19
NEW MODES OF ANALYSIS

19. 20
Paul Butler, Data: Facebook.
Imagage: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=469716398919

20. Miguel Rios (Twitter)
Data: Twitter
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/this-is-what-a-sabbatical-at-twitter-looks-like/31498
See also: https://blog.twitter.com/2012/euro-2012-recap

21. Graphs by: Cornelius Puschmann
Data: Twitter
Puschmann, C., Weller, K., & Dröge, E. (2011). Studying Twitter conversations as (dynamic) graphs: visualization and
structural comparison. Presented at General Online Research, 14-16 March 2011, Düsseldorf, Germany.
http://ynada.com/posters/gor11.pdf.

22. SOCIAL MEDIA
VS.
SOCIAL MEDIA
24

23. FORMATS
25
https://blog.twitter.com/2015/now-on-twitter-group-direct-messages-and-mobile-video-capture

24. IMMEDIATENESS
26

25. IMMEDIATENESS
27
http://twitpic.com/135xa

26. IMMEDIATENESS
28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

27. IMMEDIATENESS
29
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=US_Airways_Flight_1549&action=history

28. USER‘S MOTIVATION
30

29. USER‘S MOTIVATION
31

30. AVAILABILITY
32

31. AVAILABILITY
34
http://politwoops.sunlightfoundation.com/tweet/595702073062256640
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/05/08/deletes-of-the-week-dont-automate-tweets-write-them/

32. 35
TOP CHALLENGES FOR
HISTORIANS AND LIBRARIES

33. d
DARK AGES?
36

34. LOST FOREVER?
37

35. LOST FOREVER?
38

36. LOST FOREVER?
39

37. 40
https://web.archive.org/web/20100320132227/http://twitter.com/librarycongress

38. d
DIGITAL DIVIDE
41

39. d
TIP OF THE ICEBERG?
43

40. THANK YOU!

41. QUESTIONS? YES, PLEASE!
Slides are available at: http://slideshare.net/katrinweller/
Coming soon:
Weller, K. (2015). The digital traces of user-generated
content: How social media data may become the historical
sources of the future . To appear in Managing Digital
Cultural Objects: Analysis, Discovery, Retrieval”, edited by
Pauline M. Rafferty and Allen Forster.
45
@kwelle ● katrin.weller@gesis.org ● http://katrinweller.net