Beyond the stars: Interpreting discourse cohesion in Twitter as an indicator of community Cornelius Puschmann, University of Düsseldorf / Institute for Internet and Society DIATA 11 Workshop 15. September 2011, Düsseldorf Sonntag, 25. September 11
Transcript
1. Beyond the stars: Interpreting discourse cohesion in Twitter
as an indicator of community Cornelius Puschmann, University of
Dsseldorf / Institute for Internet and Society DIATA 11 Workshop
15. September 2011, DsseldorfSonntag, 25. September 11
2. This talk: an idea, a suggestion, bits of data #1 How are
conversations conducted on Twitter and what issues emerge with
establishing coherence? #2 How and why is @-messaging used among
members of a specic community? #3 How can conversations (rather
than friends/ followers) be used to measure social
cohesion?Sonntag, 25. September 11
3. User timeline single timelineSonntag, 25. September 11
4. all friends view aggregation of the timelines of other
usersSonntag, 25. September 11
5. Time and the all friends view Lovely weather this
morning!Sonntag, 25. September 11
6. Time and the all friends view Lovely weather this morning!
@cornelius Same over here!Sonntag, 25. September 11
7. Time and the all friends view Lovely weather this morning!
@adeline nice! how have you been lately? @cornelius Same over
here!Sonntag, 25. September 11
8. Time and the all friends view Lovely weather this morning!
@adeline nice! how have you been lately? @cornelius Same over here!
Okay, this is interesting: http://something.comSonntag, 25.
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9. Time and the all friends view Lovely weather this morning!
@adeline nice! how have you been lately? @cornelius Same over here!
Okay, this is interesting: http://something.com RT @parker Okay,
this is interesting: http://something.comSonntag, 25. September
11
10. Time and the all friends view Lovely weather this morning!
@adeline nice! how have you been lately? @cornelius Same over here!
Okay, this is interesting: http://something.com RT @parker Okay,
this is interesting: http://something.com Breaking news about
something: http://something.com (via @zeigor, @parker)Sonntag, 25.
September 11
11. Time and the all friends view Point in time #1 Point in
time #2 Lovely weather this morning! @adeline nice! how have you
been lately? @cornelius Same over here! Okay, this is interesting:
http://something.com RT @parker Okay, this is interesting:
http://something.com Breaking news about something:
http://something.com (via @zeigor, @parker)Sonntag, 25. September
11
12. Time and the all friends view Point in time #1 Point in
time #2 Lovely weather this morning! @adeline nice! how have you
been lately? conversation @cornelius Same over here! Okay, this is
interesting: http://something.com RT @parker Okay, this is
interesting: http://something.com Breaking news about something:
http://something.com (via @zeigor, @parker)Sonntag, 25. September
11
13. Time and the all friends view Point in time #1 Point in
time #2 Lovely weather this morning! @adeline nice! how have you
been lately? conversation @cornelius Same over here! Okay, this is
interesting: http://something.com RT @parker Okay, this is
interesting: http://something.com Breaking news about something:
http://something.com (via @zeigor, @parker) Twitter doesnt lend
itself well to conversation.Sonntag, 25. September 11
14. Premise Twitter conversation individual tweetSonntag, 25.
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15. Premise Twitter conversation individual tweet Thesis:
Examining longer stretches of discourse rather than individual
tweets is methodologically superior in some research
contexts.Sonntag, 25. September 11
16. Celebrities vs. casual Twitter users In [Twitters]
follower-following topology analysis we have found a non-power-law
follower distribution, a short effective diameter, and low
reciprocity, which all mark a deviation from known characteristics
of human social networks. - Kwak, Lee, Park & Moon,
2010Sonntag, 25. September 11
17. Celebrities vs. casual Twitter users [C]elebrity practice
reinforces unequal power differentials. While Twitter users who do
not use the site instrumentally may think of their followers as
friends or family, celebrity practice necessitates viewing
followers as fans. - Marwick and boyd, 2011Sonntag, 25. September
11
18. Celebrities vs. casual Twitter users celebrities (RL and
SoMe) casual users many followers fewer followers # friends < #
followers # friends = # followers small % of followers are larger %
of followers are conversation partners conversation partners people
who communicate people who dont professionally (e.g. artists)
communicate professionally broadcasting, performance
conversationSonntag, 25. September 11
19. The data1 I conducted a pilot study of 10 casual German and
Austrian Twitter users in Spring 2011. 2 Central issues of the
study were privacy and self-disclosure. My approach combined email
3 interviews with diachronic content analysis. 4 I followed this up
with a study of 25 video game enthusiasts on Twitter.Sonntag, 25.
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20. Types of tweets in the pilot study 33% n = 4052 54% 12% 2%
@-messages Retweets Tweets containing URLs other TweetsSonntag, 25.
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21. Sonntag, 25. September 11
22. Sonntag, 25. September 11
23. Approach of the gamer study studied a community of
German-speaking gamers tracked 24 users for a period of 6 weeks
collected ~50k tweets 38k of these were @-messages recruited
subjects through an informerSonntag, 25. September 11
24. Time S Text 14:15:40 Gary Diese User-Review zu From Dust
auf Metacritic hat mich restlos berzeugt! http://... 14:16:51 Bob
@Gary Habe Metacritic all die Jahre unterschtzt :P @Gary @Steve
Wollt ihr auf dem Pressetag der GC jetzt eigentlich irgendwas
14:18:30 Chris kreatives machen? @Steve @Gary Knnte mir vielleicht
ne kleine HD-Cam ausleihen, aber keine Ahnung 14:19:56 Chris
wieviel Speicher die hat und ob gute Qualitt @Bob Ich bin einfach
vom Stil des Schreibers berrascht. Wer so "sophisticated" 14:24:57
Gary schreiben kann, muss Ahnung haben! @Chris hhh... der @Steve
klrt das schon ab. Ich fnds cool, aber ich bin Mittwoch 14:25:50
Gary schon ziemlich ausgelastet. 14:26:47 Chris @Gary wieso was
musst du denn machen? @Chris Termine, mein Freund! Alles voller
Termine. Ich muss auch vor den Anderen 14:27:20 Gary mein
Mittagessen zu mir nehmen ;) 14:27:26 Bob @Gary True Art is
Incomprehensible! True Art is Offensive! ^^Sonntag, 25. September
11
25. Friends/Followers for user GarySonntag, 25. September
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26. Conversation network for user GarySonntag, 25. September
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27. Observations Usage of Twitter differs so signicantly from
one user group 1 to another that the claim of it being a channel
for broadcasting can be contested. Users conduct surprisingly long
and structured 2 conversations with recurring communicative
partners. A surprisingly large number of these 3 partners are
neither friends or followers of the users.Sonntag, 25. September
11
28. Thank You for your attention!Sonntag, 25. September 11