Social media analytics

Social media analytics

We have been involved in the analysis of social media and the data it produces since the very early stages of its creation. This has included an investigation into the potential of "Big Data" sources such as Twitter to detect disease outbreaks, which has received international press coverage e.g. The Telegraph, The Times of India, featured by the HPA’s annual conference and was a finalist for an Ehealth Insider Prize. Using similar approaches, we have also investigated hay fever, psychosis, spam detection, political frictions and the politics of appropriation (funded by the British Academy). 

Above: Retweet network of tweets that contain the hashtag #StopIslam after 2016 Brussels bombings. From 1,944 users who have retweeted and been retweeted.

Currently we are working with colleagues in Humanities at Keele and Sheffield University on an AHRC funded project which is combining qualitative techniques from the social sciences and machine learning to investigate representation and appropriation in mediated activism on twitter surrounding the Christchurch Terrorist attack, Brexit and the Coronavirus pandemic.

A‌bove: Retweet and Quote Tweet Networks of tweets related to Muslims and Islam, posted during and after events related to the Christchurch Terrorist attack, Brexit and the Coronavirus pandemic.

Key Papers

• Poole, E., Giraud, E. and de Quincey, E. (2020) Tactical Interventions in Online Hate Speech: The case of #stopIslam. New Media and Society.
• Poole, E., Giraud, E. and de Quincey, E. (2019) Contesting #StopIslam: The Dynamics of a Counter narrative Against Right-wing Populism. Open Library of Humanities, 5(1), p.5.

Please get in touch if you want to learn more about our on-going research in this area or are interested in collaborating.