THE DIGITAL TRACES
OF USER-GENERATED
CONTENT:
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA DATA MAY BECOME THE
HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE FUTURE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, MAY 14TH, 2015
DR. KATRIN WELLER
GESIS – LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FÜR SOZIALWISSENSCHAFTEN
JOHN W. KLUGE FELLOWSHIP IN DIGITAL STUDIES, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WWW.KATRINWELLER.DE ● KATRIN.WELLER@GESIS.ORG ● @KWELLE

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SERIOUSLY? DO THEY NOT REALIZE THAT
99% OF TWEETS ARE WORTHLESS BABBLE
THAT READ SOMETHING LIKE
‘JUST WOKE UP. GOING TO STARBUCKS
NOW. GETTING LATTE.’
READER’S COMMENT FOUND IN THE COMMENT SECTION FOR GROSS, D. (2010, APRIL 14). LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TO ARCHIVE YOUR TWEETS. CNN.
RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://EDITION.CNN.COM/2010/TECH/04/14/LIBRARY.CONGRESS.TWITTER/, RETRIEVED NOVEMBER 19.
PHOTOS: HTTPS://WWW.FLICKR.COM/SEARCH/?TEXT=COFFEE&LICENSE=4%2C5%2C6%2C9%2C10

SOCIAL MEDIA AND
USER-GENERATED CONTENT
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2006

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2011

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WORTHLESS BABBLE?
POINTLESS BABBLE?
Kelly, R. (2009). Twitter Study. Pear Analytics, retrieved from http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/12/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf

BUT…
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INFORMATION ABOUT
EVERYDAY LIFE

https://twitter.com/BarackObama

SOCIAL MEDIA IS
AFFECTING DISCOURSES
AND EVENTS
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#egypt
#gezi
#furgeson
#jesuischarlie
#occupy
#qldfloods
#royalwedding
#olympics
#election2012
…

(SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
INTERACTING WITH
HISTORICAL
SOURCES/PLACES)
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SOCIAL MEDIA
VS.
TRADITIONAL SOURCES

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SIMILAR CONTENT
http://asp.tacticalgear.com/

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SIMILAR CONCEPTS
http://storycorps.org/
Oral History vs. Crowdsourcing?

NEW FORMATS
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NEW MODES OF ANALYSIS

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Paul Butler, Data: Facebook.
Imagage: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=469716398919

Miguel Rios (Twitter)
Data: Twitter
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/this-is-what-a-sabbatical-at-twitter-looks-like/31498
See also: https://blog.twitter.com/2012/euro-2012-recap

Graphs by: Cornelius Puschmann
Data: Twitter
Puschmann, C., Weller, K., & Dröge, E. (2011). Studying Twitter conversations as (dynamic) graphs: visualization and
structural comparison. Presented at General Online Research, 14-16 March 2011, Düsseldorf, Germany.
http://ynada.com/posters/gor11.pdf.

SOCIAL MEDIA
VS.
SOCIAL MEDIA
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FORMATS
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https://blog.twitter.com/2015/now-on-twitter-group-direct-messages-and-mobile-video-capture

IMMEDIATENESS
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IMMEDIATENESS
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http://twitpic.com/135xa

IMMEDIATENESS
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

IMMEDIATENESS
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http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=US_Airways_Flight_1549&action=history

USER‘S MOTIVATION
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USER‘S MOTIVATION
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AVAILABILITY
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AVAILABILITY
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http://politwoops.sunlightfoundation.com/tweet/595702073062256640
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/05/08/deletes-of-the-week-dont-automate-tweets-write-them/

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TOP CHALLENGES FOR
HISTORIANS AND LIBRARIES

d
DARK AGES?
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LOST FOREVER?
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LOST FOREVER?
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LOST FOREVER?
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https://web.archive.org/web/20100320132227/http://twitter.com/librarycongress

d
DIGITAL DIVIDE
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d
TIP OF THE ICEBERG?
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THANK YOU!

QUESTIONS? YES, PLEASE!
Slides are available at: http://slideshare.net/katrinweller/
Coming soon:
Weller, K. (2015). The digital traces of user-generated
content: How social media data may become the historical
sources of the future . To appear in Managing Digital
Cultural Objects: Analysis, Discovery, Retrieval”, edited by
Pauline M. Rafferty and Allen Forster.
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@kwelle ● katrin.weller@gesis.org ● http://katrinweller.net