G20 Cross-syndication

Anne Helmond, Catalina Iorga, Alejandro Ortega

... the growing importance of Facebook as a space where a public can be reached and informed and can enter into a dialogue to discuss issues of common interest and influence political decision-making

Networked Publics: The Double Articulation of Code and Politics on Facebook

Ganaele LangloisUniversity of OntarioGreg Elmer, Fenwick McKelvey, & Zachary DevereauxRyerson University

Theoretically, the challenges primarily lie in understanding the uniqueness of social networking sites as assemblages where software processes, patterns of information circulation, communicative practices, social practices, and political contexts are articulated with and redefined by each other in complex ways.

Questions

•What is the platform dependency of G20?

•Can we map out the rich media ecology of a protest?

•What is the scope of the scale of activism on Facebook?

Startingpoint

•Select one of the largest G20 Toronto summit Facebook protest groups, "RESIST TORONTO G20 SUMMIT 2010" (over 6,800 members).

•Identify other web spaces it is officially affiliated to:Website: G20CentralTwitter account: @G20mobilize

Step 1: Harvest outlinks from the three selected platforms

•The Toronto Community Mobilization Network's website(tool: NaviCrawler)

•The official Twitter account (tool: copy paste in Harvester)

•The official Facebook group (tool: semi-automatic Harvester)

Step 2: Examine which types of websites and respective content

the outlinks refer to.

•Analyze links

•Categorize (eg: video platform, photo platform, NGO)

Step 3: Compare and contrast the three platforms' outlink networks

•Count

•Visualize (Bubbleline tool)

Website:Facebook:Twitter:

Initial findings

•Prominence of YouTube

•YouTube is linked to but does not contain links in the comments

•Content platforms do not link outside!

Where else are the photos and videos that are refered to?

What are the platforms where content is syndicated?

Problems•Facebook: scraping links from Links

pages in Groups. Workaround for Linkripper:

• copy paste all links

• put in skype

• follow all links

• copy paste all links

• put in link ripper

•Scraping links from a single website: NaviCrawler website down.