Acute Events in Social Media

ACUTE EVENTS IN SOCIAL MEDIA

JEAN BURGESS | @jeanburgessQUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

KATE CRAWFORD | @katecrawfordUNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES & INNOVATION

acute events

Common dynamics: sharp peaks, high volume and intensity

Highly mediated, involving multiple actors/interests

In twitter, often coordinated around particular #hashtags

Produce controversies & ‘adjunctive conversations’

Flickr: JohanBerglund

Andreas Jungherr and Pascal Jürgens (2011) ‘A map drawn in sand: Twitter data and the structure of political campaigns’. Düsseldorf Workshop on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twitter Analysis (DIATA11), Düsseldorf, Germany on 14-15 September 2011.

Event-driven research

‘peakiness’ and ‘burstiness’

Flickr: gabrielaP93

#ausvotes (2August. 2011)

#royalwedding (29 Apr. 2011)

Crises

• Unplanned/unforeseen acute events• High stakes, multiple interests, adverse

impacts• Disruptive/productive effects on systems

Flickr: Daveybot

#qldfloods

Flickr: Jono Haysom

#eqnz

Flickr: NZ Defence Force

#spill

New epistemologies?

Boyd, danah & Kate Crawford, ‘Six Provocations for Big Data’, A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society, September 2011.

Time and accessibility

Flickr: teachernz

Need for mixed methods

Flickr: Lightmash

Ethics of access

New digital divides

Flickr: pierofix

Thank you…

[email protected]@unsw.edu.au