=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1691/microposts2016_socsci-report
|storemode=property
|title=Making Sense of Microposts (#Microposts2016) Social Sciences Track
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1691/microposts2016_socsci-report.pdf
|volume=Vol-1691
|authors=Katrin Weller,Aba-Sah Dadzie,Danica Radovanović
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/msm/WellerDR16
}}
==Making Sense of Microposts (#Microposts2016) Social Sciences Track==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1691/microposts2016_socsci-report.pdf
Making Sense of Microposts (#Microposts2016)
Computational Social Science Track
Katrin Weller∗ Aba-Sah Dadzie∗ Danica Radovanović∗
GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Knowledge Media Institute, Basic Internet Foundation /
Social Sciences The Open University UNIK
Cologne, Germany Milton Keynes, UK Oslo, Norway
katrin.weller@gesis.org aba-sah.dadzie@open.ac.uk danica@basicinternet.org
ABSTRACT In academia there is increasing tendency toward interdis-
For the second time, the #Microposts workshop features ciplinary work between computer science and other technical
a track to highlight social science perspectives on micro sciences [11, 21] and the social sciences [8], increasingly re-
communication structures in online environments. This pa- ferred to as Computational Social Science. Different social
per introduces the #Microposts2016 (Computational) Social media tools provide an expressive medium for sharing with
Science Track, which all contribute to connecting research others – both acquaintances and the general public – feel-
methods and approaches in computer science and social sci- ings, needs, current status, or simple statements [16]. This
ence. By providing a forum for closer interaction between provides solid ground for forming phatic expressions, which
the two fields, the track is becoming a platform for interdisci- we also refer to as Microposts. A Micropost constitutes a
plinary projects and new ideas to combine different method- small, brief message, theme or a single thought, quick and
ologies and theories. For this year’s special track we see the easy to publish, and that, posted from a variety of plat-
trend of relating Microposts to external demographics or forms and by very large numbers of individuals with as many
survey data as a way to better understand Microposts in viewpoints and interests, collectively provide a rich source
their broader contexts. of information and opinion about a range of topics.
The first micro-sized social media posts were exchanged
using text; while the term Micropost has evolved with ad-
CCS Concepts vances in technology the term now rarely needs definition.
•Information systems → World Wide Web; •Applied Text is still a popular means of expression, e.g., in a tweet,
computing → Enterprise computing; status update or a comment in a news feed. The term is how-
ever now used even outside the workshop to refer not just to
brief text posts but as a means of sharing also other multi-
Keywords media information – in photos, streaming and pre-recorded
Microposts, Social Science, Web Science, Computational So- video and audio, with the caveat that the post remains small.
cial Science, Internet science, Internet research, social me- Popular options include as an Instagram photo (with a hash-
dia, user-generated content, online communication tag), a Snapchat quick video message or a three second In-
stagram Boomerang video.
1. BACKGROUND The brevity of Microposts makes them a convenient, low-
cost means for sharing information in the moment and on
Accelerated development of Information-Communication
the go, from a variety of personal devices, from the myriad
Technologies (ICT) has a profound impact on socio-cultural
new apps and portals built each year. The utility of Mi-
relationships and processes; this presents a challenge for re-
croposts is seen in that where direct access to the Internet
searchers from multiple disciplines and backgrounds. In an
is not available, for instance in remote, off-grid or under-
interconnected world of information, different forms of com-
served areas, apps exist to allow the next most convenient
munication and social dynamics are formed, referring to the
communication means, including mobile networks and even
socio-technological processes that take place online. New
radio, to be used to transport Microposts. On the other
technologies shape information, communication and collab-
hand, where traditional communication channels and media
oration dynamics in different environments while contribut-
outlets are overwhelmed or cut off, typically during disasters
ing to persistent interdisciplinarity.
and emergencies, or during uprisings and mass demonstra-
∗ tions, social media access via Internet access may provide
All authors made equal contributions
a lifeline or “connector” to emergency and information ser-
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or
vices, family and friends [4, 10, 14]. The Ushahidi platform,
classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for instance, has been used for crowdsourced translation and
for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full cita- relay of information in a number of crises, using SMS with
tion on the firstc page.
Copyright 2016Copyrights
held byfor components of this work
author(s)/owner(s); owned by
copying others than
permitted
social media, notable particularly following the 2010 Haiti
ACM
only must be honored.
for private andAbstracting
academic with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or re-
purposes.
publish,
Publishedto post
ason servers
part or to#Microposts2016
of the redistribute to lists, requires prior specific
Workshop permission
proceedings, earthquake. LINE, one of the most popular social media
and/or a fee.online
available Requestaspermissions from permissions@acm.org.
CEUR Vol-1691 (http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1691) tools in Japan, was born in the wake of the 2011 earthquake
#Microposts2016, Apr 11th, 2016, Montréal, Canada.
to aid communication [9, 12].
c 2016 ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-2138-9.
DOI: 10.1145/1235
· #Microposts2016 · 6th Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts · @WWW2016
2. TOWARD MORE INTERDISCIPLINARY One modification was to the track name, to (Computational)
APPROACHES FOR MAKING SENSE OF Social Science. The new name better reflects the intent to in-
clude contributions from the social sciences as additional dis-
MICROPOSTS ciplines on the one hand, and also contributions that clearly
The #Microposts workshop [1] aims to provide an in- apply multidisciplinary approaches and bridge the social sci-
terdisciplinary forum for Computer Science researchers and ences and computer science on the other. Submissions ac-
practitioners to collaborate with specialists from other fields, cepted in 2015 demonstrated very well how cross-boundary
including Information, Web, Social and Computational Sci- submissions enrich the overall workshop scope, and those in
ences, to discuss the generation and analysis of Micropost 2016 reinforced the value in such work to making sense of
data and promote effective application of its knowledge con- Microposts.
tent in different contexts and situations, including emer-
gency response, crowd and event tracking, mass communi- 3.1 Track Sponsor: GESIS
cation and marketing, opinion mining and sentiment analy- For the second time GESIS, the Leibniz Institute for the
sis. The track also looks at research examining ethics, legal Social Sciences [2] is our sponsor for this special track. As a
and privacy issues in the analysis and reuse of data which, research infrastructural organisation for the social sciences,
although typically published in public or semi-public fora, GESIS offers support and services for different phases in the
often includes sensitive, identifiable information about indi- research process. The established services for supporting
viduals. The social and communication dynamics that result traditional social science research have recently been com-
from the use of Micropost-based services are sometimes im- plemented with a GESIS department in Computational So-
pacted by cultural, generational and regional differences [9], cial Science, which focuses on algorithms and theories for
often seen in data journalism and citizen reporting of civil studying social phenomena based on Web data. This work
action and politics as in the use of Microposts in the Arab is in many ways closely related to research on making sense
Spring, and in the use of the forum for education and citizen of Microposts. Support from GESIS confirms the relevance
empowerment. of the special track; by helping to raise the profile of the
Making a significant contribution to today’s “big data”, track, the Microposts workshop continues to attract partici-
the research and analytical activity necessary in making pation from authors and attendees who would not normally
sense of Microposts rely in large part on techniques and tools participate in a conference targeted predominantly at Com-
for large-scale information extraction and knowledge acqui- puter Science.
sition, in order to handle the very high rate at which Mi-
croposts are published, and increasingly using multi-media. 3.2 Topics of Interest
However, automated analysis alone cannot decipher the sub-
language necessary to capture complete messages in such In 2016 three submissions were received for the (Computa-
small packets, or the nuance often used to aid encoding of tional) Social Science track. A fourth submission submitted
these very small snippets of information, and in public or to the main track was also included in the review process for
semi-public fora, load message content. Key to unpack- this track as it clearly crossed interdisciplinary boundaries,
ing Micropost content is the human in the analysis loop, with two reviewers from each track’s committee assigned to
to identify and interpret nuance that cannot be picked up it. Out of these submissions, one was accepted for full paper
by automated methods, to better understand why end users presentation and two as poster presentations.
employ this medium and in what circumstances it may be All three accepted submissions contribute valuable per-
seen as a preferred means of communication. In addition to spectives to the understanding of Microposts, using differ-
large-scale computational analysis it may also be necessary ent disciplinary approaches to bridge the gap between the-
to look more closely at selected cases – and combine this with ory and practice. However, after a second review round a
other quantitative and, importantly, qualitative approaches decision was made not to award the best paper prize (Com-
for analysis. It is also often necessary to combine different putational) Social Science track, as the standard for doing
sources of data which complement each other. Further, from so was not fully reached. Honourable mention however goes
a social science perspective, approaches that help to relate to the paper Comparing Social Media and Traditional Sur-
online communities to wider online and offline populations veys Around the Boston Marathon Bombing [6]. The au-
are particularly interesting. thors, Cody Buntain, Erin McGrath, Jennifer Golbeck and
Gary LaFree, address one of the key challenges in bridging
traditional social science methods with new computational
3. THE #MICROPOSTS2016 (COMPUTA- approaches. In a case study about the bombings during the
Boston Marathon in April 2013 Buntain et al., combine sur-
TIONAL) SOCIAL SCIENCE TRACK vey data (from a panel survey and an experimental setup)
While the #Microposts workshops have always sought to with digital trace data from social media. They thus placed
bring together researchers with different disciplinary back- Microposts, on Twitter, in the broader context of opinions
grounds, the need to place an even stronger focus on contri- examined through survey data. Of value especially to com-
butions from the broader field of social sciences became ap- puter scientists is how this paper shows capability to gain
parent. #Microposts2015 thus featured the first dedicated insight into the value of survey data, as a way to enrich
Social Science track in the #Microposts series, and the pro- online communication data. Social scientists on the other
gramme committee was broadened to assemble even more hand will find information that helps them to judge the costs
social scientists and researchers from related disciplines en- (temporal and financial) of collecting new types of data in
gaged in the study of Microposts and online communication. comparison to standard approaches employed in the field.
Based on the success in its first year, which saw two accepted As the authors conclude, applied together, survey and so-
submissions, the Social Science track was continued in 2016. cial media data can show a more complete picture of public
30
· #Microposts2016 · 6th Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts · @WWW2016
opinion. the role of Micropost messages in dealing with unexpected
Both poster presentations in this track present studies on events is another popular topic, having seen practical use in
a specific group of Twitter users, and in both cases refer to crises, environmental disasters and emergencies. For exam-
these users as some sort of elite. The poster Studying the ple, #Microposts2015’s Social Science track also featured a
Role of Elites in U.S. Political Twitter Debates by Sebas- case study that investigated communication around a cri-
tian Stier [20] concentrates on “elites” that dominate polit- sis event – the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Shooting in France [7].
ical conversations: politicians, other government represen- The 2016 paper on the Boston Marathon bombing [6] does
tatives and news media representatives. Alex Jeongwoo Oh not delve as deeply into understanding the polarisation of
& Pramuan Bunkanwanicha in CEOs on Twitter [13] focus different groups reacting to the terrorist attacks; it rather
on “elite” users in different business sectors. They analyse reminds us that Microposts can be further enriched with
the tweets of executives of major firms to detect differences additional data. As we see in this workshop, from a social
in style and practice and relate them to demographics on science perspective, this may be opinions polled via surveys
the one hand and economic performance of the respective as well as demographics collected for specific user groups.
companies on the other.
Studying Microposts based on selected groups of users 3.3 Track Committee
instead of specific topics (e.g. as expressed through hash- The proposal to include again the (Computational) Social
tags) enables different forms for understanding the ongoing Science track was strengthened by the programme commit-
communication. Studying “elite” users such as politicians tee, who work in the Social Sciences, Computer Science and
and CEOs has another direct advantage: once an account in Business Administration in Higher Education in Europe,
is verified as belonging to a certain elite user it typically the Middle East and North and South America. Together,
also becomes possible to work with additional information our committee comprise a wealth of research that was ex-
about this person, such as demographics like age and loca- hibited in the the informative reviews for all submissions,
tion. Even more detailed biographical information is usually whether accepted or not. This feedback resulted in final
available from verified external sources for such elites. For papers that should provide a good contribution to the liter-
instance, information about politicians may include political ature on Making Sense of Microposts and the broader fields
programmes, information on CEOs may include wages and of related research.
different positions held during their career. On the other
hand, when studying regular users (non-public figures) one
is usually bound to the information these users provide on Acknowledgments
public (Web) platforms when filling in user profiles. Such Katrin Weller is senior researcher and team leader at the De-
profile information is often limited, incomplete, ambiguous partment of Computational Social Sciences, GESIS Leibniz
or even deliberately misleading. On Twitter, for example, Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. Aba-
user profiles do not include information on gender or age Sah Dadzie is researcher in Data Science at KMi, the Open
and there is no standardised form for entering geo-location. University, working on the EU project EDSA (no. 643937).
This has inspired research on methods to automatically in- Danica Radovanović is a senior visiting researcher at UNIK,
fer demographic information or other user attributes from Kjeller, Norway and a Digital Equality Advisor at the Basic
online activities or user networks [5]. This is not without Internet Foundation headquartered in Oslo, Norway.
its challenges, also because there is still ongoing debate in
the Internet research ethics community about how much in-
formation may be collected or inferred about regular Web
4. REFERENCES
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