IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v12y2020i12p210-d451652.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Citizen Science on Twitter: Using Data Analytics to Understand Conversations and Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Suvodeep Mazumdar

    (Information School, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Dhavalkumar Thakker

    (Department of Computer Science, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

Abstract

This paper presents a long-term study on how the public engage with discussions around citizen science and crowdsourcing topics. With progress in sensor technologies and IoT, our cities and neighbourhoods are increasingly sensed, measured and observed. While such data are often used to inform citizen science projects, it is still difficult to understand how citizens and communities discuss citizen science activities and engage with citizen science projects. Understanding these engagements in greater depth will provide citizen scientists, project owners, practitioners and the generic public with insights around how social media can be used to share citizen science related topics, particularly to help increase visibility, influence change and in general and raise awareness on topics. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first large-scale study on understanding how such information is discussed on Twitter, particularly outside the scope of individual projects. The paper reports on the wide variety of topics (e.g., politics, news, ecological observations) being discussed on social media and a wide variety of network types and the varied roles played by users in sharing information in Twitter. Based on these findings, the paper highlights recommendations for stakeholders for engaging with citizen science topics.

Suggested Citation

  • Suvodeep Mazumdar & Dhavalkumar Thakker, 2020. "Citizen Science on Twitter: Using Data Analytics to Understand Conversations and Networks," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-22, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:210-:d:451652
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/12/12/210/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/12/12/210/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Hertel, Guido & Niedner, Sven & Herrmann, Stefanie, 2003. "Motivation of software developers in Open Source projects: an Internet-based survey of contributors to the Linux kernel," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1159-1177, July.
    3. Halberstam, Yosh & Knight, Brian, 2016. "Homophily, group size, and the diffusion of political information in social networks: Evidence from Twitter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 73-88.
    4. Kaplan, Andreas M. & Haenlein, Michael, 2010. "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 59-68, January.
    5. Julie Freeman, 2016. "Digital Civic Participation in Australian Local Governments: Everyday Practices and Opportunities for Engagement," Public Administration and Information Technology, in: Mehmet Zahid Sobaci (ed.), Social Media and Local Governments, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 195-218, Springer.
    6. Richards, Daniel R. & Tunçer, Bige, 2018. "Using image recognition to automate assessment of cultural ecosystem services from social media photographs," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PC), pages 318-325.
    7. Brian S. Butler, 2001. "Membership Size, Communication Activity, and Sustainability: A Resource-Based Model of Online Social Structures," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 346-362, December.
    8. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    9. Yoon, Hyui Geon & Kim, Hyungjun & Kim, Chang Ouk & Song, Min, 2016. "Opinion polarity detection in Twitter data combining shrinkage regression and topic modeling," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 634-644.
    10. Jalali, Nima Y. & Papatla, Purushottam, 2019. "Composing tweets to increase retweets," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 647-668.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marialisa Scatá & Barbara Attanasio & Aurelio La Corte, 2021. "Cognitive Profiling of Nodes in 6G through Multiplex Social Network and Evolutionary Collective Dynamics," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-17, May.
    2. Abdulelah A. Alghamdi & Margaret Plunkett, 2021. "The Perceived Impact of Social Networking Sites and Apps on the Social Capital of Saudi Postgraduate Students: A Case Study," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-23, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    2. Fathey Mohammed & Nabil Hasan Al-Kumaim & Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & Yousef Fazea, 2023. "The Impact of Social Media Shared Health Content on Protective Behavior against COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Germano, Fabrizio & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2020. "Opinion dynamics via search engines (and other algorithmic gatekeepers)," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    4. Baccarella, Christian V. & Wagner, Timm F. & Kietzmann, Jan H. & McCarthy, Ian P., 2018. "Social media? It's serious! Understanding the dark side of social media," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 431-438.
    5. Pierluigi Conzo & Andrea Gallice & Juan S. Morales & Margaret Samahita & Laura K. Taylor, 2021. "Can Hearts Change Minds? Social media Endorsements and Policy Preferences," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 641, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    6. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    7. Thomas Fujiwara & Karsten Müller & Carlo Schwarz, 2024. "The Effect of Social Media on Elections: Evidence from The United States," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 1495-1539.
    8. Xinran Dai & Jing Wang, 2023. "Effect of online video infotainment on audience attention," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, December.
    9. Chan, Chitat, 2018. "Analysing social networks for social work practice: A case study of the Facebook fan page of an online youth outreach project," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 143-150.
    10. Abhishek Samantray & Paolo Pin, 2019. "Credibility of climate change denial in social media," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-8, December.
    11. Hakobyana, Zaruhi & Koulovatianos, Christos, 2019. "Populism and polarization in social media without fake news: The vicious circle of biases, beliefs and network homophily," CFS Working Paper Series 626, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    12. Leonardo Bursztyn & Georgy Egorov & Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova, 2019. "Social Media and Xenophobia: Evidence from Russia," NBER Working Papers 26567, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Ascensión Andina-Díaz & José A. García-Martínez & Antonio Parravano, 2019. "The market for scoops: a dynamic approach," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 175-206, June.
    14. Sylvain Dejean & Marianne Lumeau & Stéphanie Peltier, 2021. "Partisan selective exposure in news consumption," Working Papers hal-03295625, HAL.
    15. Kaplan, Andreas & Haenlein, Michael, 2020. "Rulers of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 37-50.
    16. Pierre C. Boyer & Thomas Delemotte & Germain Gauthier & Vincent Rollet & Benoît Schmutz, 2020. "Social Media and the Dynamics of Protests," CESifo Working Paper Series 8326, CESifo.
    17. Kerim Peren Arin & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Deni Mazrekaj & Marcel Thum, 2021. "Misperceptions and Fake News during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 9066, CESifo.
    18. Folajimi Ashiru & Franklin Nakpodia & Jacqueline J You, 2023. "Adapting emerging digital communication technologies for resilience: evidence from Nigerian SMEs," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 327(2), pages 795-823, August.
    19. Dejean, Sylvain & Lumeau, Marianne & Peltier, Stéphanie, 2022. "Partisan selective exposure in news consumption," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Bowen, T. Renee & Galperti, Simone & Dmitriev, Danil, 2021. "Learning from Shared News: When Abundant Information Leads to Belief Polarization," CEPR Discussion Papers 15789, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:210-:d:451652. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.