AoIR 2013

#Pontiff-Ex: The Twitter Community’s Reaction to the Papal Resignation

Theresa Sauter and Axel Bruns

• 25 Oct. 2013 – Association of Internet Researchers conference, Denver

AoIR 2013

Exploring Emotions on #auspol: Polarity and Public Performance in the Twitter Debate on Australian Politics

Theresa Sauter and Axel Bruns

• 26 Oct. 2013 – Association of Internet Researchers conference, Denver

AoIR 2013

#ausvotes Mark Two: Twitter in the 2013 Australian Federal Election

Axel Bruns, Tim Highfield, and Theresa Sauter

• 24 Oct. 2013 – Association of Internet Researchers conference, Denver

Australia New Zealand Communication Association 2013

#wavotes: Tracking Candidates' Use of Social Media in the 2013 Western Australian State Election

Tim Highfield and Axel Bruns

• 5 July 2013 – Australia New Zealand Communication Association conference, Fremantle

Australian Teachers of Media 2013

Social Media in Australia: The Case of Twitter

Axel Bruns

• 4 July 2013 – Australian Teachers of Media Conference masterclass on social media, Brisbane

Centre for Advanced Studies 2013

Neue Öffentlichkeiten auf Social-Media-Plattformen: Zur Nutzung von ‚Big Data‘ in der Kommunikationsforschung

Axel Bruns

• 23 April 2013 – Centre for Advanced Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München

Social-Media-Plattformen wie Facebook und insbesondere Twitter stellen eine große Menge öffentlicher Nutzer- und Nutzungsdaten zur weiteren Verwertung durch Markt- und Hochschulforschung bereit. Diese ‚Big Data‘ unterstützen eine in dieser Form bislang noch nicht möglich gewesene, breit aufgebaute Untersuchung aktueller Kommunikationsprozesse, die den Begriff der Öffentlichkeit bis auf die „persönlichen Öffentlichkeiten“ (Schmidt, 2009), die um einzelne Social-Media-Accounts herum entstehen, ausweiten kann. Dieser Vortrag stellt erste Ergebnisse eines solchen Forschungsansatzes am Beispiel der Nutzung von Twitter in Australien dar, wo (für etwa 22 Mio. Einwohner) um die 2-2½ Mio. Twitter-Accounts existieren. Ein besonderes Interesse gilt dabei der politischen sowie der Krisenkommunikation.

Re:publica 2013

Die Twitterstrategien der Wahlkampagnen im US-Wahlkampf 2012

Axel Bruns and Tim Highfield

• 6 May 2013 – Re:publica, Berlin

Media in Transition 8

Mapping the Australian Twittersphere

Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns

• 3-5 May 2013 – Media in Transition 8, Boston

This paper maps networks of affiliation and interest in the Australian Twittersphere and explores their structural relationships to a range of issues-based ad hoc publics (Bruns, Burgess 2011). Using custom network crawling technology, we have conducted a snowball crawl of Twitter accounts operated by Australian users to identify more than one million users and their follower / followee relationships, and have mapped their interconnections. In itself, the map provides an overview of the major clusters of densely interlinked users, largely centred on shared topics of interest (from politics through parenting to arts and sport) and/or socio-demographic factors (geographic origins, age groups). Our map of the Twittersphere is the first of its kind for the Australian part of the global Twitter network, and also provides a first independent and scholarly estimation of the size of the total Australian Twitter population. In combination with our investigation of participation patterns in specific thematic hashtags, the map also enables us to examine which areas of the underlying follower / followee network are activated in the discussion of specific current topics – allowing new insights into the extent to which particular topics and issues are of interest to specialized niches or to the Australian public more broadly. Finally, we investigate the circulation of links to the articles published by a number of major Australian news organisations across the network.