Understanding the uses of social media in the mundane accomplishment of social

resilience

Rob Procter, Anita Greenhill, Marta Cantijoch, Ben Lee, William Housley, Pete Burnap, Matt Williams, Adam

Edwards, Alex VossSee also:

cosmosproject.net @cosmos_project

Two case studies- Manchester and Cardiff

• Inner city (with an emphasis on South Manchester in Manchester case)

• Tweets gather from some 140 tweet accounts for a period of 8 weeks.

• Tweet accounts can be identified according to categories comprising: Police, Health Organisations, City Council and Agencies, Local Community Organisations, Community Activist and Active Individuals living in the area, local and regional Media, Commercial Organisations, Culture and Sports.

Both cases:

• Interviews with approx 12 individuals about their social media and tweeting usage. A cross section of groupings identified from the accounts identified.

• Information flows being carried out and coded according to tweet content.

• Network analysis of interactions and evolving topics of discussion for the selected time frame.

The Study

• Explores the ‘negotiated order’ of communities by individual citizens, community groups, public agencies and institutions, voluntary organisations, etc. at a time when social media innovations appear to offer new public fora for contesting, challenging, debating, aligning, organising, disrupting and participating.

MCR Social Network AnalysisDegree Centrality Betweeness Centrality Closeness Centrality

@mcfc 1 1 1@guardian 0.88 0.14 1@itvnews 0.81 0.03 1@youtube 0.76 0 0

@mennewsdesk 0.73 0.07 0.67

@hmrcgovuk 0.58 0.03 1@oxfam 0.58 0.01 1

@mcrconfidential 0.57 0.02 1

@bbcradiomanc 0.55 0.01 1@gmpolice 0.54 0 1

@nhsmanchester 0.51 0.25 0.71

@fcunitedmcr 0.5 0.01 1

@gmpmoston 0.49 0.09 0.3

@mancirishfest 0.44 0.02 0.46

@mancitycouncil 0.42 0.16 0.43

Preliminary from Manchester:

• These metrics and visualisations represent the retweet network for both datasets (i.e. who retweeted who). The degree centrality score could be argued to represent influence here, as this represents the highest retweeted accounts. The other centrality scores represent the proximity in the network to all other nodes, which could be argued to represent overall reach of the user.

COSMOS Visualization

Filters

Metrics

CDF Social Network Analysis

Degree Centrality Betweeness Centrality Closeness Centrality

@cardiffcouncil 1 1 0.27@swpolice 0.75 0.13 0.18@swpeast 0.69 0.21 0.22@fishat85 0.69 0.06 0.2

@vaughangething 0.68 0.54 0.31@c3sc 0.67 0.02 0.27

@grangetownplaid 0.66 0.21 0.34

@kevinbrennanmp 0.66 0.18 0.25

@rcmamarkets 0.6 0.1 0.18

@theethicalchef 0.59 0.02 1@luke4csp 0.56 0.07 0.26

@doughty4csp 0.56 0.08 0.31

@pontcannaranger 0.55 0.02 0.23

@lukenicholas87 0.51 0.32 0.22

@ashleygovier 0.5 0.12 0.31

COSMOS Visualization

To Summarise • In the Cardiff dataset, 7 out of

top 10 accounts are local government, law enforcement and political.

• These are also present in Manchester’s top 10. However Manchester also includes two football clubs in its top 10 mentions – but surprising, not United and City, but City and FC United (small club, big cause). Cardiff’s football club- Cardiff City isn't in top 10 mentions.

• In Manchester those who tweet the most are: MCFC, Youttube, (media) ITVnews, MEN, Guardian. Highest re-tweek is MCFC at 18300

• Then the police, commercial and non commercial organisations eg. Oxfam, Almostfamous MCR.

• Followed by Manchester City Council and other State lead Institutions

• Individuals and local level activist only start at re-tweet levels of 2 or so.

To Consider• While the major topics related to a

geographic boundary were: crime, health, politics and the environment. These were NOT the defining topics of identification embraced by those interviewed.

• This raises questions about the binding nature of the network as a geographic bounded exchange and the exchange of information in community building and information sharing.

• The ‘negotiated order’ is well established, detailed and highly respected and maintained.

Interviews reveal: in a Public Fora

Careful• “I'm very careful about what I say on

there anyway, but I purposely don't— For example, I never refer to my husband by his name. He's always 'hubby'. And it's things like that. There are certain things that I will and won't put on there.”

• “I especially won't take my iPhone out if I'm going out drinking. You know, I just know, do not tweet because I don't need my work colleagues and I don't need members to be able to see what I might be getting up to at 3 a.m. on a Saturday.”

Conscious• “So I'm very conscious that

anybody can see my tweets and if it's not something that I'd be willing to stand up in a room of people and say, then it won't get put on.”

All expressed full awareness of the public nature of the platform and the need to manage their usage.

• “We intentionally don't tweet about certain issues. So for example, today, Thatcher's funeral, we would stay completely and utterly away from that. We don't get involved in politics. We don't get involved in ... you know. The Boston marathon, obviously it's tragic what's happened there, but it's not the right forum for us to express any views on that. So we keep it very mainstream. Just because of who we are, we can't be seen to be affiliated and we try not to favour any of our members above each other.”

• “Yeah. And also, I think Twitter isn't a completely constant thing in my life. I don't look at it at weekends, generally. I tend to view it as a weekday activity.”

• “We don't lock it down and confine it too much because I think, by doing that, you kill it. I think it's got to be— As an organisation, we do it very much that you've got your own common sense. If you do something stupid, then you will suffer the consequences of doing something stupid. You've got to take responsibility for your actions.”

Location, detail and speed like nowhere else

• “And it's because of the sort of speed of information travelling and whatever, you know, if it wasn't for Twitter, I would have found out about that stuff through different channels, but mostly likely it would have taken longer. I think I was forwarded an email kind of later on, but the instantaneousness of community news changes the way that I engage with those things.”

To Consider:

• While the major topics related to a geographic boundary were: crime, health, politics and the environment. These were NOT the defining topics of identification embraced by those interviewed.

• This raises questions about the binding nature of the network as a geographic bounded exchange and the exchange of information in community building and information sharing.

• The ‘negotiated order’ is well established, detailed and highly respected and maintained.

Call for papers:

• Workshop on Analyzing Social Media for the Benefit of Society: Society 2.0

• Third International Conference on Social Computing and its Applications

• Sep 30–Oct 2 2013, Karlsruhe, Germany

• Details of topics and submission procedures at http://socialcloud.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/confs/SCA2013/Workshops.php