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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Challenges When Identifying Migration From Geo-Located Twitter Data, Caitrin Armstrong, Ate Poorthuis, Matthew Zook, Derek Ruths, Thomas Soehl Jan 2021

Challenges When Identifying Migration From Geo-Located Twitter Data, Caitrin Armstrong, Ate Poorthuis, Matthew Zook, Derek Ruths, Thomas Soehl

Geography Faculty Publications

Given the challenges in collecting up-to-date, comparable data on migrant populations the potential of digital trace data to study migration and migrants has sparked considerable interest among researchers and policy makers. In this paper we assess the reliability of one such data source that is heavily used within the research community: geolocated tweets. We assess strategies used in previous work to identify migrants based on their geolocation histories. We apply these approaches to infer the travel history of a set of Twitter users who regularly posted geolocated tweets between July 2012 and June 2015. In a second step we hand-code …


Misinformation More Likely To Use Non-Specific Authority References: Twitter Analysis Of Two Covid-19 Myths, Joseph Mcglynn, Maxim Baryshevtsev, Zane A. Dayton Sep 2020

Misinformation More Likely To Use Non-Specific Authority References: Twitter Analysis Of Two Covid-19 Myths, Joseph Mcglynn, Maxim Baryshevtsev, Zane A. Dayton

Communication Graduate Research

This research examines the content, timing, and spread of COVID-19 misinformation and subsequent debunking efforts for two COVID-19 myths. COVID-19 misinformation tweets included more non-specific authority references (e.g., “Taiwanese experts”, “a doctor friend”), while debunking tweets included more specific and verifiable authority references (e.g., the CDC, the World Health Organization, Snopes). Findings illustrate a delayed debunking response to COVID-19 misinformation, as it took seven days for debunking tweets to match the quantity of misinformation tweets. The use of non-specific authority references in tweets was associated with decreased tweet engagement, suggesting the importance of citing specific sources when refuting health misinformation.


Differences Between Teacher-Focused Twitter Hashtags And Implications For Professional Development, Spencer P. Greenhalgh Jun 2020

Differences Between Teacher-Focused Twitter Hashtags And Implications For Professional Development, Spencer P. Greenhalgh

Information Science Faculty Publications

Twitter hashtags may serve as valuable means for teachers' professional development. However, given the diversity of hashtag spaces and teacher needs, teachers must assess a given hashtag and compare it to their learning needs and preferences before determining whether it would be helpful. To support this reflection, I examine data associated with 60 Regional Educational Twitter Hashtags (RETHs) during the first six months of 2016 to begin describing the variety of teacher learning-focused Twitter spaces and make distinctions between them. My results indicate that these RETHs vary according to their relative focus on sharing, intimacy of personal connection, and volume …


Exploring Crisis Communication And Information Dissemination On Social Media: Social Network Analysis Of Hurricane Irma Tweets, Xianlin Jin Jan 2020

Exploring Crisis Communication And Information Dissemination On Social Media: Social Network Analysis Of Hurricane Irma Tweets, Xianlin Jin

Communication Graduate Research

This study utilized social network analysis to identify the top 10 Twitter influentials during the Hurricane Irma crisis period and examined the relationship between social media attributes and the bridge influence of controlling information flow. The number of a user’s followers and tweets significantly predicted one’s control of information. Crisis information tended to be shared in scattered subgroups. Social network boundaries impeded information diffusion, and the communication pattern was largely one-way. The findings partially supported the opinion leader argument while indicating that influentials can directly generate information, which is consistent with the social-mediated crisis communication model. Such findings will contribute …


"Participant" Perceptions Of Twitter Research Ethics, Casey Fiesler, Nicholas Proferes Jan 2018

"Participant" Perceptions Of Twitter Research Ethics, Casey Fiesler, Nicholas Proferes

Information Science Faculty Publications

Social computing systems such as Twitter present new research sites that have provided billions of data points to researchers. However, the availability of public social media data has also presented ethical challenges. As the research community works to create ethical norms, we should be considering users’ concerns as well. With this in mind, we report on an exploratory survey of Twitter users’ perceptions of the use of tweets in research. Within our survey sample, few users were previously aware that their public tweets could be used by researchers, and the majority felt that researchers should not be able to use …


Tweeting The Anthropocene: #400ppm As Networked Event, Lauren E. Cagle, Denise Tillery Sep 2017

Tweeting The Anthropocene: #400ppm As Networked Event, Lauren E. Cagle, Denise Tillery

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

Social media platforms have been widely available for over 10 years, and communication research has responded in part by exploring how Facebook and other social media sites are used for advocacy and public discourse. Environmental issues, including climate change, have also been the focus of recent work on social media, including Environmental Communication's 2015 special issue on Climate Change Communication and the Internet. Bruno Latour's actor-network theory allows people to account for the roles played by users, links, hashtags, and other actants in the effort to move information through a larger network. The high percentage of tweets in the dataset …


Who’S Following Twitter? Coverage Of The Microblogging Phenomenon By U.S. Cable News Networks, Deborah S. Chung, Mina Tsay-Vogel, Yung Soo Kim Jan 2015

Who’S Following Twitter? Coverage Of The Microblogging Phenomenon By U.S. Cable News Networks, Deborah S. Chung, Mina Tsay-Vogel, Yung Soo Kim

Journalism and Media Faculty Publications

Through data captured in a digital content analysis (DCA) lab, we examine coverage of Twitter across three 24-hour U.S. cable news channels: CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. This investigation tracked Twitter coverage from its initial stage, followed by its rise to a massively used tool and its subsequent diffusion into society, evident through its plateauing coverage. News stories covering Twitter, as it penetrated into society, were more likely to use benefit/gain frames when discussing the technology, highlighting its positive social, communicative, political, and participatory impact. Benefit frames were also likely to associate Twitter with journalism. Patterns …