THE
PLEASURES
AND
PERILS
of Studying
Twitter
Katrin Weller
#rsmconf13 Researching Social Media Conference, Nov. 4th 2013, Sheffield

Background

Personal background
#diata11
#diata12
#hiddendataproject
@twitsocbook
#gesisworkshops

Twitter research on the rise
SCOPUS search: TITLE(twitter) AND PUBYEAR > 2005, 22.08.2013.

Twitter vs. Facebook
Scopus (TITLE-ABS-KEY(Twitter) AND PUBYEAR > 2006)
(TITLE-ABS-KEY(Facebook) AND PUBYEAR > 2006)

10 pleasures and perils

#1
de-banalizing Twitter
Richard Rogers:
Foreword. In:
Twitter and
Society, 2013

#2
rich content, simple
structure

#3
Simple structure? Theories?

#4
API
data access

#5
API
data access

#6
data haves, data have-nots
boyd, danah and Kate
Crawford. (2012).
“Critical Questions for
Big Data”

#7
Who‘s on Twitter?

Local Following

#8
Ethics?

#9
Methods and standards?

#10
No explicit methods and
standards

Outlook

Forgotten features?
images, favorites

Cross-platform studies
•
multi-method approaches
•
interdisciplinary work

Longitudinal studies
•
comparisons

Shared datasets?
•
Historical perspectives

Exciting work ahead!

THANK YOU!
Katrin Weller
@kwelle
katrin.weller@gesis.org
http://katrinweller.net
www.gesis.org/en
Follow
@twitsocbook
for news