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SMAP 2010

Describing and Modeling User Behaviour in Social Media

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris > Associate Professorpanayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy | http://www.zaphiris.org/

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Online Communities

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Web 2.0 Social Media

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Entertainment (social) Systems

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Virtual Worlds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmTXGQ2BhUA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmTXGQ2BhUA

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

In my view in 3 steps:

1. Analysing existing behaviour

2. Analysing social networks formed around socialmedia

3. Modeling/Simulating interactions

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Describing and Modeling User Behaviour inSocial Media

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Query based Techniques (interviews,questionnaires, focus groups)

Usability and Accessibility Evaluations

Content Analysis/Ethnography

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

1. Analysing existing behaviour

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Case study: Patterns of empathy in onlinecommunication for older people

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SeniorNet (http://www.seniornet.org/ )

aims to educate older people about computer and internetusage

hosts a large number of discussion groups on its website our study concentrates on the discussion board about

depression

400 messages (6 Aug 2000 14 Feb 2002) from 47members

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Data source

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Qualitative Content Analysis

Read all messages

Define the unit ofanalysis

Read

Extract/refinekeywords and

themes

Order/group thethemes

Saturation Final codescheme

Draft ofcode

scheme

Meaning

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Code Scheme

Case Study: Trends, Similarities and Differences

in Newsgroup Usage by Younger and OlderInternet Users

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

2. Analysing social networks formed aroundsocial media

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There is a correlation between social interaction

and quality of life for seniors (Czaja, Nair et al.,1993).

Older people who used computers thought theyhad more social interaction, memory enhancementand mental stimulation (Eilers, 1989).

Getting a better understanding about how seniorcitizens interact online through CMC could give theresearch community insights as to how this

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Older People and Technology

This study focuses on Computer MediatedCommunication (CMC), and investigates thesimilarities and differences in CMC usage betweenteenagers and seniors.

Concentrate on two newsgroups (alt.teens andsoc.senior.issues) and analyse the online socialcommunities that emerged within these groups.

Qualitative and quantitative data analysis,ethnographic techniques and SNA

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Key Objectives

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1. What are the properties of the networks and actors

within the two newsgroups under investigation?2. Who is central and powerful within the social

structure of these two newsgroups?

3. Have any subgroups (cliques) formed within eachof the newsgroups under investigation?

4. What are the network/group positions and social

roles within each of the newsgroups?5. What are the significant patterns, relations and

structures within each of the newsgroups underinvestigation?

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Social Network Analysis Questions

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

(t=11.320, p

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

(t=-5.565, p

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Popular topics: alt.teens (alt.abortion, alt.bible,

politics, parents, drugs and music). soc.senior.issues (retirement, politics, military, culture,engineering housing, and health)

Abbreviations: teens newsgroup members usemore abbreviations (t=2.868, p0.168).

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Virtual Ethnography

200 messages were observed from eachnewsgroup and the message sender and receiver(s) recorded. The teens newsgroup had 70 uniqueauthors and the seniors newsgroup 90.

From this data, a 70*70 adjacency matrix wasproduced for the alt.teens newsgroup data set.

Similarly, a 90*90 adjacency matrix was producedfor the soc.seniors.issues data set.

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

alt.teensSociogram

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

soc.senior.issues Sociogram

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

In Degree Centrality

alt.teens soc.senior.issues

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Out Degree Centrality

alt.teens soc.senior.issues

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Clique Analysis

alt.teens soc.senior.issues

Case Study: Modeling/Simulating interactions in

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games(MMORPGs)

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

3. Modeling/Simulating interactions

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games played over networked computers, where

potentially thousands of players interact with eachother in a real-time perpetual environment

expected to grow from $31.63 billion in 2006 to$48.88 billion in 2011

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

MMORPGs

Percentage of teenagers in MMORPG?

mean age?

Percentage of males players?

Average hours playing a week?

Percentage of players whose most positiveexperience over the past 7 days had been fromthe game?

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

MMORPG quiz

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identify social roles that emerge from

individuals interaction in thecommunity

examine the interaction styles for thesocial roles

identify the relationship betweendifferent social roles

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Social Roles of WoW

Most previous work in this area assumed theconventional social science analyticalperspective. They studied who the users are(gender, age, etc) and what the users do

SNA: what the users do with whom? A role is relational to the group with whom one

interacts.

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

SNA perspectives

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Dwelt in the game for weeks to familiarise

ourselves with the general practice and culturearound the game

Then we joined a relatively large guild

Using the in-game chat-log function, we managedto keep a record of guild members chat activities

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Methods

A total of 1944 guild messages were collected in30 hours of observation spanning across 2months.

We categorised the messages

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Methods

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Group Management

Coordination

Ask for Help

Give Help

Friendly Remarks

Game Chats

Real Life Chats

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

More than just killing

Tabulated the messages into socio-matrices forSNA by identifying who talked to whom

UCiNET: CONCOR block model

Blocking is based on similar patterns of interaction

the players have with each other within the sameblock and with players from other blocks. (basedon structural equivalence)

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Methods

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Results

Block ABlock B

Block C(R2 = 0.409)

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Interaction Types of each Block

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

EI-index for each block

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Interaction between blocks

A

B

C

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Social Network Simulation

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Validation

Answer/question network Social chat network

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Validation

we carried out virtual experiments with the simulation toidentify the relationship between the parameters and thesocial network characteristics.

The value of the five parameters was varied at 11 levelsindependently and 30 social networks were generated for

each level. The average of the SNA measures was calculated for each

set of the 30 social networks.

A total of 30 x 11 x 5 (parameters) = 1650 social networkswere produced for the main analysis.

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Virtual experiments

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Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Example of results

Understanding the mechanisms and the structure of socialnetworks around social media.

Answering research questions about the structure, evolution orcollapse of online social networks.

Describing and modeling/predicting user behaviour and providinguser specific adaptations to the interface. E.g. provide userinterface elements and mechanisms to encourage non active usersto participate in the social network.

Studying success or failure of user interface changes without riskydeployment

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization

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Need for triangulation of methods

Study of user behaviour in Social Media needsmultidisciplinary approaches

Social simulation can provide predictive answersto research and design questions

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris | panayiotis.zaphiris@cut.ac.cy

SMAP 2010

Discussion/Conclusion