Social Media Data Analysis

Social Media Data Analysis
Hüseyin Oktay
University of Massachusetts,
Amherst
[email protected]
Recep Erdem Erkul,
Editor & Founder
www.digital-government.net
[email protected]
(This article published on Informatics Association of
Turkey Journal ) (http://www.bilisimdergisi.org/s153/
index.html?page=24 )
Second Generation Internet
Web 2.0 (i.e,. second generation Internet) was coined in
2004 by O’Reilly Media[1]. Second-generation internet
includes social networking sites, social media platforms
and wikis—i.e. systems utilized by internet users for
collaboration and sharing.
Web 2.0 was about blogs and wikis in its early forms;
however, moving forward, other web technologies
emerged to improve Web experience. New internet
technologies developed within such purpose enable
visitors to participate with web sites and platforms, to
collaborate with other users as well as easily share their
ideas and thoughts [2].
Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter,
Wikipedia and Blog pages are examples of the most
widely used Web 2.0 applications. These applications did
not exist in our lives until 2004; however, now it is almost
impossible to imagine our lives without them.
To reiterate, content is created entirely by users in Web
2.0 and social media applications and individuals can
interact with each other through these applications. This
main feature of these applications transforms the power
in content creation to an equal and participative model
instead of an ‘elitist’ model of monopoly [3]. Perhaps as
a result of this participative model, Web 2.0 and social
media are being very actively used today.
According to recently published studies, users around
the world spend 1 out of total of 5 online-minutes in
using the social media platforms [4]. In August 2011, 23
million different users spent a total of 45.3 billion
minutes on the internet. With 13.1 billion
minutes, users spent most of their time on
Facebook [5]. More than 200 million tweets per
day is shared on Twitter throughout the world
[6]. More than 5 million of that tweets are sent
in Turkish.
With such evidence, society’s views, requests,
and responses (or at least part of the
society represented in social media), to the
current events are reflected in social media.
Comments on all kinds of topics and events;
from a political event to TV series, or from the
results of football matches to economic news
and discussions are present in social media
or blogs [7]. Moreover, state institutions—via
e-participation efforts—or companies—via
social marketing strategies—try to encourage
citizens or consumers to share their views
through social media [2]. In other words,
social media becomes a platform which
comments and ideas of thousands, perhaps
millions of users on various events are taking
place. There are thousands, maybe millions
of different posts required to be read or
summarized.
Crimson Hexagon
Advancements in artificial
intelligence and computer
technology enable us to index
and summarize such extensive
content generated on social
media. For example, a social
media analytics company, Crimson Hexagon
[8] co-founded by a Harvard professor in
Boston, created Foresight platform. Such
platform can collect and automatically analyze
posts—on a specific topic—created by users
on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogs.
An analysis report is created automatically
within the platform. These reports, include
proportions for custom generated categorized
related to a specific topic. In addition,
aggregate level demographic information and
the popularity of users posting about these
subjects (based on their Klout score) are
automatically created.
Arguably, users on social media may not be
representative of the whole society. However,
understanding opinion of part of the society
that is represented on social media could be
very useful to government agencies as well
as different companies. Our examples will
span a wide spectrum, from current global
events to companies’ understanding consumer
motivations, to people’s reaction on television
programs and political events took place
within the country.
Case Studies
Egypt and Libya
The first example is about the analysis of the
reaction of people in Egypt, Libya and Syria
on twitter to Arab Spring. Different studies
argued that people used social media as a
coordination and communication platform
during Arab Spring. In this article, we mention
a study that analyses twitter content created in
these countries before and after Arab Spring
[14].
In Egypt, twitter users mainly generate posts
expressing both their opinions about the
current political situation and how the new
government should be created. From February
2011 to June 2012, approximately 12 million
tweets in Arabic and more than 1 million
tweets in English are analyzed for this study.
During this time-interval, conversations on
Twitter, focused on forward-looking approach,
which is about establishing new governmental
institutions and elections (i.e., nation building)
instead of backward-looking that is about
revolution and the actual Arab turmoil. While
54% of tweets have focused on revolution
between February 2011 and November 2011
elections, this percentage has decreased to
26% during the period after the elections until
January 2012. In June 2012, this proportion
has dropped to 10%. This topic was replaced
by the conversation about establishing a new
state.
The conversation on Twitter about Libya’s
was a little bit different than it is in Egypt. In
September 2011, after the death of Kaddafi,
twitter conversations are different depending
on the language it is written (i.e., English
or Arabic). Tweets in English talked about
armed forces and armed conflict, on the other
hand, tweets in Arabic were mostly about
establishing a new state. Also Libya, did not
seem to be moving on after Kaddafi—one third
of the conversation in Twitter is still about the
crimes during Kaddafi and his family’s ruling
and the punishments they are exposed.
Pope Election on Twitter and
Facebook
The second example includes the analysis of
posts in Facebook and Twitter related to the
election of Pope on 13th of March 2013. The
reaction to the election is compared
between the USA, UK and Argentin.
In USA, while 21% of the conversation
were positive, 8% of them were
negative. In UK, on the other hand,
the proportion of the positive and
negative conversations were equal
with 12%. Maybe not surprisingly, the
proportions were higher than these
two countries in Argentina: 30%
positive and 18%negative. [16]
Conversations done in USA were
mostly (56%) just sharing the news
without including any subjective
opinion. 15% of the positive
conversation is about the confidence
and the excitement for the new Pope.
6%, on the other hand, is about the
excitement for the Catholic Church
in general. In UK, 51% of sharing
content conversation included some
humor sand sarcasm.
13% of the positive opinion in
Argentina, the country of the
new Pope included support and
excitement, 10% expressed the
national proud after an Argentinian to
be elected for this duty.
In this example, beside the ease of measuring
the reactions for a current event by looking
at social media, we can see that the used
technology is language agnostic in its analysis.
Valentine’s Day—States in USA
Third example is about Valentine’s Day tweets
in different states in the USA. By analyzing
more than 2 million tweets shared in the first
two weeks of February, the overall picture was
as follows: 23% of them were neutral, 40% of
them negative and 37% of them were positive.
While the tweets with negative opinion were
more than that of positive opinion in the first
days of February, the daily percentage of the
positive conversation became more than the
negative conversation as the Valentine’s Day
approached. [15]
In U.S. the state where the most romantic
conversation appeared via twitter was
California famous for its perfect sunny
weather through out the whole year.
Wyoming and Texas were the runner-ups
after California, and the remaining states for
top 5 are Utah and Hawaii which is a popular
honeymoon destination.
The most negative conversation
about Valentine’s Day were in South
Dakota where usually severe weather
conditions happen, the other states in
top 5 for negative conversation were
West Virginia, North Dakota, Rhode
Island and Kentucky.
The largest amount of tweets about
Valentine’s Day are posted in New
York, the state having the largest
young and single population. Because
of the tweets frequently showing an
intention for finding a date, it seems
the most convenient place for people
to go not to be alone on Valentine’s
Day was obviously New York.
U.S Presidential
Elections
Another example is the third U.S.
Presidential Debate on 22th October
[9]. For this debate, in two days,
approximately one million tweets
and photo were shared in Twitter.
Analysis of such posts revealed
that, 37% of the users think Obama
wins the controversy, on the contrary 35% of
users think Romney wins. The remaining %27
think the result think it was draw. [10] Posts
favoring Obama state that he is a better option
for economy and foreign politics.
Tax Increase in US
The fourth example is the citizens’ opinions
in social media about the US tax increase.
24% of the overall conversations in social
media reflect the emotions of people (e.g.,
posts from people who are angry, anxious
and disappointed). 36% of them mainly share
news items about the issue. 22% share ironic
and fun messages with sarcasm. 18% reflect
either supportive ideas or critical politic
views.[12] To access more analysis check out
Crimson Hexagon’s blog page.[13]
The TV Series Kuzey Guney (North South) from
Turkey
The last example is from the TV series “KuzeyGuney” broadcasted in Turkey. In one episode,
one of the characters of the series,
Ferhat, was killed, and the murderer
was a secret, however, the followers
of the series share their ideas about
who the murderer was using social
media. According to followers, the
most possible murderer was at first the
character named as Güney. After some
more evidence emerged in the next
few episodes, the potential murderer
was thought to be Sami by the Twitter
users in Turkey, and lastly with more
clues, followers considered Burak as
the murderer. It is interesting that even
though it was not yet clear who the
murderer was, twitter users had their
own opinions on social media.
Consequence
Web 2.0 technology has become one
of the daily technological activities for
people globally and also in Turkey.
In particular, social media platforms
enable users to socially interact online
and reflect their opinions on a daily
basis.
In Turkey, both public and private
companies can use the social media as
a tool that enables them to get almost
instant feedback about their services
and products, which users spread what
type of ideas, in what scale their goals
are realized. Such feedback can enable
government organizations and private
companies to revise their strategies
related to their services and products.
References
[1] http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-isweb-20.html
[2] http://www.sde.org.tr/tr/haberler/1775/
sosyal-medyanin-kamu-hizmetleri-vesiyasette-kullanilabilirligi.aspx
[3] Jackson, N. A. & Lilleker, D. G.(2009).
‘Building an Architecture of Participation?
Political Parties and Web 2.0 in Britain’,
Journal of Information Technology &
Politics,6:3,232 — 250
[4] agbeat.com—social-networks-nowaccount- for-1-in-5-minutes-of-all-web-use
[5] www.newmediatrendwatch.com—87turkey
[6] http://mashable.com/2011/06/30/twitter200-million/
[7] http://www.bilisimdergisi.org/pdfindir/
s140/pdf/128-129.pdf
[8] www.crimsonhexagon.com
[9] http://www.2012presidentialelection
news.com/2012-debate-schedule/2012presidential-debate-schedule/
[10] http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_
news/2012/10/24/14674385-social-mediaanalysis-bayonets-fail-to-cut-romney-butoverall-debate-sentiment-swings-obamasway?lite
[11] http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/
social-media-analysis-who-shot-ferhat/
[12] http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/
social-media-opinion-fiscal-cliff/
[13] http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/blog/
[14] http://mashable.com/2013/03/09/
twitter-revolution/
[15]http://mashable.com/2013/02/14/
romantic-states-social-media/
[16]http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/
aggregate-opinion-analysis-removeslanguage-barrier/