Session 1: Data Production, Usage and Integration

Showing the partisanship or issue commitment of an actor. Tool is named after Walter Lippmann. In “A Test of the News” he argues that publics don’t exist, but publics need to be created through tools, eg by being polled. He proposed a series of tools, one of which we tried to address in The Lippmannian Device tool.

First use scenario: Querying sources for actors (built on top of Google). The output are source clouds. Example project: Climate Change Sceptics. Sceptic friendly sources and watchdogs. Which sources mention which individual names?

Second use scenario: An organization’s issue agenda (or commitment). The output are issue clouds. Example project 1: NGO, Public Knowledge. 2: Greenpeace issues taken from their website. What is Greenpeace’s issue agenda?

Third use scenario: multiple sources, multiple issues. what is the agenda of a human rights organizations? Take three good lists of human rights organizations (global south, global north, UN). Triangulate lists. Scraped all websites for all their issues. Top box: all URLs of the websites, bottom: all issues. The tool is actually batch querying Google.
Bottom of the tagcloud, which issues a neglected by the human rights organizations?

Italian journalists who were doing critical reporting used the tool. Impression: the same experts on tv, no matter what the issue is. Use the tool to verify that indeed actors are affliliating with multiple issues. 

My colleague Esther Weltevrede has compiled this excellent list of things Wired has declared dead over the past years.

Wired: intitle:”* is dead” site:wired.com

The Wired Graveyard:
The Web Is Dead
Futurism Is Dead
Skype on Fring Is Dead
The desktop is dead
“Cyberspace” Is Dead
Devo Is Dead
Copyright Dead
DRM Is Dead
The Police Interceptor Is Dead.
Cthulhu Is Dead
Pontiac is Dead
Advertising Dead?
The Viper is Dead
Missile Defense Is Dead
The Western Blot is Dead
eDonkey Is Dead
‘Long-Term Accumulate’ Is Dead
WiFi is Dead
Garfield is Dead
Rock Is Dead
Tim Russert is Dead
Divx Is Dead
Paper Is Dead
iTunes Dead?
PUNK IS NOT DEAD!!!
The Album Is Dead
The Tivo Box Is Dead
Code Red Is Dead
PDA Is Dead
The Creator of the Ramen InstaNoodle Is Dead
Is Interactive Dead?
The TV Is Dead

Thanks @esthr!

This is the transcript of the Digital Methods Initiative Advanced Program Projects week 2 opening talk on Issuecrawler 1.0 and Social Media by Anne Helmond.

The 2.0 denotes an ‘improved’ or progressional version of the web that builds upon and develops Web 1.0. [...] Implicitly rooted in this vision of the web is a sense of teleological progress, of purposeful and directed development, of continual and designed improvement. (Beer 2009: 986)

Instead of looking at Web 2.0 as the “next” version of the web, we can also look at the changes in the structure of the web, specifically looking at web native objects. In this view, Web 1.0 consists of the static page, whereas Web 2.0 consists of dynamic pages filled with the web native object of the status update or the post. This may be seen in the blog and specifically in RSS – denoting changes to a page-, which could be considered a main object of study in the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and in the social networking site with its profiles that display a page (The Wall) filled with posts. An important shift has taken place in the structure of the web: in Web 1.0 hyperlinks mainly link to static pages and objects and in Web 2.0 the hyperlink links to dynamic pages and objects. This shift affects the way we map and analyze the web.

In general terms, Web 2.0 is a concept that forms part of the lexicon of a range of emerging accounts that commentate on a large-scale shift toward a ‘participatory’ and ‘collaborative’ version of the web, where users are able to get involved and create content. (Beer 2009: 986)

This ‘participatory’ and ‘collaborative’ web has created new objects and new types of hyperlinks that characterize Web 2.0: the subscribe, the like, the share, the nr of retweets, the submit to Digg, the save to Delicious, the social network profile, the shortened url, etc. The question also becomes, are these new characteristics forming a new currency of the web? In Links and Power: The Political Economy of Linking on the Web, Jill Walker describes links as the currency of the web and asks what its currency is. Even though there is a black market for links she notes that “The more common form of trade in this economy of links is barter exchange. Reciprocal linking and link exchange are common practice, and are loosely organised as favours or more systematically in web rings and blogrolling.” (Walker 2002)

Is the hyperlink still the currency of the web in Web 2.0?

If we want to map the current web, how can we use, or adjust, the IssueCrawler to deal with these new objects and new types of links? How do we map a dynamic web? Currently, the IssueCrawler collapses all social networking links from platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Current web mapping and analysis focuses on the interrelations between users on for example Twitter by isolating it. How can we map the current web by not looking at these platforms in isolation but as part of the so-called “ecosystem” they are part of?

The traditional web site is static, but the Internet specializes in flowing, changing information. The “velocity of information” is important — not just the facts but their rate and direction of flow. […] The structure called a cyberstream or lifestream is better suited to the Internet than a conventional website because it shows information-in-motion, a rushing flow of fresh information instead of a stagnant pool. […] Internet culture is a culture of nowness. (Gelernter 2010)

The lifestream is characterized by both time (which we will deal with later) and cross-syndication. The interwoven social media platforms gathered into a central source. How can we analyze cross-platform syndication, which tools do we currently have at hand and which tools do we need to perform such an analysis?

The profile is a common feature of Web 2.0, and is the place where information is gathered about us, our activities, our choices, tastes and preferences and so on. (Beer 2009: 996)

One way into operationalizing Web 2.0’ifying the IssueCrawler is looking at the structure of different social networking sites and platforms. Profile structures may be checked by looking into username checkers. A second way is, instead of categorizing sites by their domain name (.edu, .us, .nl) is by type of platform. A third way is to move beyond the hyperlink as the prime object of mapping as proposed by for example Greg Elmer (2006).

How are networks formed in 2.0? One could argue that a network is formed through liking, sharing and saving in addition to linking. What are the web native objects and characteristics that form networks in the 2.0? What is the role of platforms in the formation of networks in 2.0? Considering the politics of platforms (Gillespie 2010), are some platforms more central than others? How open or closed are these platforms and how does this affect mapping?

The text above describes three meta-issues, which would translate into three projects:

1. Issuecrawler 2.0 > How to deal with the 2.0 in the network?
2. Types of 2.0 links/The link 2.0 > Is the hyperlink still the currency of the web in Web 2.0? How to compare recommendation objects? Hyperlink vs. the like or the share? What do they do to the quality of the web?
3. Cross-platform syndication > cross-spherical comparison of platforms? Content circulation analysis has become difficult in the social web
4. Platform dependency > Changing linking practices > Dutch Blogosphere. How and where to find issues in 2.0? How do you define what an actor is?

Last Monday we started our DMI Summer School with the Digital Methods Training Certificate Program where we discussed the “Foundations for Online Research with Digital Methods.” Please head over to the Digital Methods Initiative blog if you want to keep up-to-date on our talks and projects:

1. Pre-Foundations of Digital Methods
2. When words are “keywords”: Query design and other digital methods
3. Lippmannian device: “Making an Issue Cloud”

With members of the Digital Methods Initiative we participated in Hack de Overheid where we created a mockup of Tikkr. Tikkr displays the pulse of media spaces and the pace of issues across different media spaces. Our concept won the third prize, woohoo! Notes and slides from our presentation are located below the photos. All pictures from Hack de Overheid are located on Flickr.

Tikkr

The web may be seen as having different media spaces or spheres which have a different pace and where authority is established differently. For example, an issue may be discussed on Twitter and not in the news. On top of that, an issue may “jump” from one media space to another. Until now there has not been a visual overview of where an issue is discussed on the web, its pace, or pulse, and how it may syndicate to other spheres. Tikkr provides the pace of different spheres where an issue is discussed and provides us with a media pulse.

It is aimed at (data-driven) journalists and political parties. Sources are important for journalists and on the web we can find new authorative sources (what the web considers to be authorative, namely: retweets on Twitter, likes in Facebook). There are no pre-defined authorative sources, there is an emerging authority of sources. For political parties it allows you to track your issue, locate where it is and where it is not!

What is the pulse of media spaces: when and where do issues arise? What is the relation of sources across spaces? We can locate hot and cold issues: An issue is published in the news, picked up by Twitter, the dying of an issue > the ticker stops ticking. Where do issues originate and where do they travel? Where is the primary source? Cross reference of sources: Where does an issue resonate most?

Slides

Photo: 2010 Jöran Maaswinkel (@JeeeM) Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0

On Tuesday we celebrated the book launch of Frank Meeuwsen’s Bloghelden, a history of the Dutch blogosphere from 1995 to 2005, at SETUP in Utrecht. I was asked to give a presentation on a project Esther Weltevrede and I are working on: Mapping the Dutch blogosphere over time.

Photo by danischouten

In his article ‘Links, Lives, Logs: Presentation in the Dutch Blogosphere’ from 2003 author Frank Schaap distinguishes two types of bloggers in the Dutch blogosphere: the lifeloggers and the linkloggers.¹ These two types of blogs, the lifelogs and the linklogs, have very specific and different linking patterns. Anno 2010 we can distinguish a new type of blog: the platformlog.

The aim of this study is to map changing blogging practices within the Dutch blogosphere. This may be done by looking at changing linking practices and studying the linking structure of the Dutch blogosphere.

Method

• Create a startlist of URLs. In this casestudy we compiled a list from experts: Arie Altena, Gert-Jan Lasterie, Frank Meeuwsen's Bloghelden book, Merel Roze's article on the Dutch Blogosphere in Schrijven Voor Het Web, and Frank Schaap's article. In the future this list will be supplemented with the Webloglijst (an early semi-manual Technorati) and Nedstat top 1000 weblogs’ statistics.
• Create hyperlink networks over time with the Issuecrawler.

Preliminary findings

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Hyves and other social media platforms appear as important actors within the network. In this sample of May 2010 Twitter is the dominant platform in the Dutch blogosphere receiving 34484 links from the crawled population. In 2010 social media platforms receive the most links from the crawled population indicating their prominence on the web and in the blogosphere. Claim: We have moved from a bloggers A-list to a platform A-list consisting of a top three of: Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. The linking structure of the Dutch blogosphere anno 2010 is characterized by social media platforms.

Maps

Click on the maps to download a hi-res PDF file (around 800K).

Social media platforms in the Dutch blogosphere

Dutch Blogosphere on 18 May 2010

Further research

• Look up URLs in the Internet Archive and create a special collection by archiving them. Visualize hyperlink networks over time with Gephi.
• How do linking practices change and which clusters emerge? When do the social media platforms arrive?
• Diagnosing the current condition of the early Dutch blogosphere.

Slides in English & Dutch

1. Frank Schaap, ‘Links, Lives, Logs: Presentation in the Dutch Blogosphere’, Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs < http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/links_lives_logs.html> [[↩]