Digital Media ,Digital Methods ,Social Media Politics

Q&A for SCS6081 Digital Methods

Latest update: 1pm, 20 April 2021

(also, I’ve updated the assessment information section on Blackboard to include an overview of putting together a digital methods research project - 21 April 2021)

Requests / questions / suggestions:

Q: Hi, what other digital methods are we going to look at because i don't want to use Gephi ? Because the assessment is coming quick, i don't feel i have enough information or knowledge about other digital methods we can use? 

A: There is no requirement to use Gephi for the assessment; you can use the walkthrough method, you can use the  YouTube Data Tools, Web Data Research Assistant (Twitter), Tumblr Tool, or Twitter Media Downloader to collect other social media data, and then use other approaches (including manual exploration) to analyse your data. I’ve started putting more demo videos up on Blackboard which give you more information about this.

Q: Hi, Can I request a further explanation of the glossary of Digital Method tools during the operation ? The steps in the instruction are easy for us, but the analysis is quite difficult.  Because it is hard to understand the information present on excel and Gephi. For example, the meaning of the following,

1

 In-degree ,and out-degree. Thank you!

A: So, in the data produced by the Web Data Research Assistant, the information in these tables gives you details about how often different things appear in the dataset. In the hashtag table, for instance, count means how many different tweets in the dataset contain this hashtag. This number does not include retweets of the same tweet -- the inc RTs column does include retweets, so it gives you the number of original tweets + retweets of these that contain the hashtag. For instance, a tweet like “Here is my tweet about #BlackLivesMatter” is a single, original tweet (count = 1). If this tweet also appears in the dataset retweeted by 2 other users, then we will have count = 1 and inc RTS = 3

For the source/target/weight table, this is telling us about connections between different Twitter accounts and how often these appear. We have the source account, which is the one making the connection; the target account, which is the account it is mentioning (i.e. connecting to); and its weight - how many times this connection appears in the dataset. Basically, if I write a tweet from my @timhighfield account and mention @BBCNews in the tweet, this will be represented in this table as:

Source - timhighfield

Target - BBCNews

Weight - 1 (if this connection is made in multiple tweets, the weight will increase accordingly)

Note that this does not imply a connection from @BBCNews to me - that would only exist if the @BBCNews account also mentions my account in a tweet; this is a directed network.

Q: I am really struggling to decide on an appropriate sociological topic for the assessment, that can be understood and investigated using digital methods. Any advice on how to select a topic? Or where to start with this? 

A: No problem, and I am sorry to hear about the struggles -- I’ll be providing a video about this to go over example topics and questions. Some types of topic that we have used as the basis for activities include:

Topic: Social media as campaign channels for health advocacy. 

Initial research question: How and to what extent do UK mental health organisations use visual content on Twitter to campaign? 

Topic: Microblogging and news making. 

Initial research question: In what ways does Twitter contribute to contemporary news making dynamics?

Topic: Social media and political campaigning.

Initial research question: How is visual content on Twitter used by key actors across the political spectrum?

Topic: algorithmic effects on information about social issues

Initial question: What sources does YouTube’s recommendation algorithm promote around contested social issues?

Topic: Social media, globalisation and pop culture/fandom. 

Initial research question: How and by whom is K-pop covered on Twitter?

Topic: Twitter as a space for protest.

Initial research question: What is Twitter used in relation to protest events with global resonance?

Topic: Social media as a space for discussion and debate. 

Initial research question: How is visual content on Twitter used in discussions of climate change and the climate crisis?

Topic: Microblogging and memorialisation.

Initial research question: Is Twitter a means to memorialise global crisis?

 Q. I too am confused on what I can possibly do my assessment on? Do you have any example topics and questions ? I am also confused about what methods we can use. To say that our assessment is in quite soon i am quite stressed

 A: As above, this will be the next bit of information made available - hopefully this will reduce stress!

 Q: What analysis tool would you use on App Walkthrough? 

 A: For the walkthrough, there is not really a tool you use specifically -- this is a method and mode of analysis that you carry out manually, but you can carry out analysis using some of the techniques mentioned elsewhere (e.g. content/visual analysis) to explore for instance the visual elements of the app/s (e.g. iconography and aesthetics).

 Q: Can we use non academic references in our report? I am considering doing the app walkthrough and most info about the app is not academic.

 A: Yes, you are welcome to use sources from non-academic references that provide context about your chosen subjects.

 Q: I feel confident in creating visualisations in Gephi but understand very little about how to interpret them. For example, if we use the yellow “weight” Excel sheet what am I actually comparing when I see the chart? What can I say about the interactions? Our seminar was very unclear about this. It would be really useful to have a walkthrough explanation of the terminology and the analysis process. 

 A: Hopefully the above answer helps clarify this a bit more -- I’m also putting together a second Gephi / Web Data Research Assistant video to unpack this a bit more, look out for this soon!

 Q: Is it OK just only analyse the words in tweets, having used Web Data Research Assistant, and then use alternative software to just create spreadsheets of eg recurring words, most popular user etc?

 A: Yes, you can do this type of analysis -- I’m providing information about a means to do that using Voyant Tools for text mining/ textual analysis, but remember that even with generating this information, you still need to analyse and explain your findings (e.g. just because certain terms are most recurring, what context are they being used, and what do they actually mean here? What is significant about this?)

Q: Should the literature review focus on methodology literature or literature about the topic we’re looking at - or a balance? 

 A: A balance is good here -- the methods literature might also appear in your research design/methodology section, but it is important to cite work that has used similar methods to demonstrate the foundations for what you are doing and why this is appropriate.

 Q: If I want to do the App Walkthrough, what specific aspects of this app should I analyse? Are we only allowed to use the App in English or we can also analyse some Chinese apps?

 A: You can study Chinese apps using the walkthrough; however, you need to ensure that you accurately and clearly provide translations and explanations of everything you are discussing. Do not uncritically rely on automatic translations as these can sometimes be very literal and not actually give the sense you are looking for. Regardless of the quality of your walkthrough in practice, you need to make sure that your report is well-written and understandable to your marker. As to what aspects of the app you analyse, that comes down to you and your specific aims and research questions for your project.

 Q：Do we need to do something like a walkthrough to document how we use the digital method or do we do that in the appendix? How should it be laid out if there is a preference. 

 Q. Would it be too much work to do both visual content analysis and textual? And then compare this between different Twitter accounts? I am unsure whether to focus purely on textual or visual, I think the data would be more detailed if I did them both. 

  Q：Can I use methods and software that I haven't learned to analyze? Can I use Sentistrength, for example, to explore Twitter users' feelings about an event?