Twitter Analytics Workshop 2014

Mapping Online Publics: New Methods for Twitter Research

Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess, and Darryl Woodford

• 12 June 2014 – Twitter Workshop: Analysing Network Data, Göttingen

The study of Twitter at large scale and in close to real time requires the development of new methodological approaches which are able to process, analyse, and visualise the ‘big social data’ which can be accessed through the Twitter API. The Mapping Online Publics project in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at Queensland University of Technology has developed a number of approaches to the study of short- and long-term Twitter publics, from analyses of the dynamics of ad hoc issue publics around natural disasters and political crises through the tracking of information flows and audience interests across mainstream and social media to the comprehensive mapping of the Australian Twittersphere. This presentation will outline the methodological approaches developed for this work, and reflect on the opportunities and challenges facing social media researchers.

Axel Bruns is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Associate Professor in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He leads the QUT Social Media Research Group and is the author of Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage (2008) and Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production (2005), and a co-editor of Twitter and Society (2014), A Companion to New Media Dynamics (2012) and Uses of Blogs (2006). His current work focusses on the study of user participation in social media spaces such as Twitter, especially in the context of acute events. His research blog is at http://snurb.info/, and he tweets at @snurb_dot_info. See http://mappingonlinepublics.net/ for more details on his research into social media.

Jean Burgess is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation (CCI) and Associate Professor, Digital Media in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. She is involved in several research projects that apply computer-assisted methods to the analysis of large-scale social media data. Her books include YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Polity Press, 2009), Studying Mobile Media: Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the iPhone (Routledge, 2012) and A Companion to New Media Dynamics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Over the past decade she has worked with a large number of government, industry and community-based organisations, focusing on the uses of social and co-creative media to increase participation, advocacy and engagement.

Darryl Woodford is a Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation (CCI) at Queensland University of Technology. He has a background in Engineering and Game Studies, including research on the agency of avatars in virtual environments. His current research includes work on social norms and regulation in the video game and gambling industries, and he is leading the development of new digital methods for measuring and evaluating television audience engagement using social media analytics.

Media Talk Symposium 2014

Layers of Communication: Forms of Talk on Twitter

Axel Bruns

• 24 Apr. 2014 – Media Talk Symposium, Brisbane

With some 2.5 million accounts, especially representing the influential 25-55 age range, Twitter has become an important social media platform in Australia. It has found key applications in areas ranging from politics and crisis communication to entertainment and sports, but also facilitates everyday communication between like-minded individuals and communities. In spite of the increased scholarly attention on the uses of Twitter across these practices, however, the question of what kind(s) of communication Twitter represents remains largely underexplored, and the forms of interaction that the platform enables have yet to be fully theorised.

Building on prior work by Bruns & Moe (2014), this paper explores the various layers of communication which exist on Twitter, from direct, dyadic @reply exchanges between clearly identified communication partners at the micro level through narrowcast message dissemination to the followers of an account at the meso level to many-to-many exchanges in ad hoc publics created by hashtags at the macro level. It outlines the different types and formats of talk which are able to occur at each of these levels, and shows the interweaving of the information and communication flows which take place on each of them. In doing so, it outlines the complexities of communication on Twitter, and points to new challenges in Twitter research.

References:

Axel Bruns and Hallvard Moe. (2014). “Structural Layers of Communication on Twitter.” In Twitter and Society, eds. Katrin Weller, Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess, Merja Mahrt, and Cornelius Puschmann. New York: Peter Lang, 2014. 15-28.

IBM Research Colloquium 2013

Social Media Issue Publics in Australia

Axel Bruns

• 12 Nov. 2013 – IBM Research Colloquium, Melbourne

When important news breaks, social media facilitate the rapid formation of issue publics which come together to 'work the story' of the unfolding event. This is especially evident in the context of natural disasters and other crises. The close study of social media feeds during such crisis provides a valuable insight into the dynamics of the event, with participants acting as human sensors for new information and current trends. This paper outlines the crisis communication research conducted at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, and outlines the need for further background research into the longer-term development of social media platforms.

Uses across Media 2013

Produsage Revisited

Axel Bruns

• 31 Oct. 2013 – Uses across Media symposium, Copenhagen

Project EPIC

Social Media in Times of Crisis: The Australian Perspective

Axel Bruns

• 23 Oct. 2013 – Project EPIC research symposium, Boulder