Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RISE_SMA (RISE Social Media Analytics)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2019-01-01 al 2022-10-31
RISE_SMA at a glance: RISE_SMA creates an interdisciplinary, international network combining world-leading scholars and excellent practitioners to enable intensive knowledge sharing and to develop solutions for advancements in social media analytics (SMA).
Social media have become an important part of daily life of millions and influences the way people get and share information. Advanced theoretical approaches and methods for analyzing social media data are especially relevant for the two areas addressed in RISE_SMA: (1) society and (2) crisis communication. In recent years, communication in social media has been shown to have a massive impact on society, and particularly on citizen’s decision-making processes, enabling new forms of public discourse and information dissemination but also challenging societal cohesion by supporting the rapid dissemination of ‘fake news’ and other unsubstantiated information, by human actors as well as bots. The development and deployment of more advanced analytical frameworks for the study of social media and their uses in public communication is therefore now one of the most pressing challenges for researchers working at the nexus of media and communication studies and computer science, and the present project directly addresses that challenge.
RISE_SMA contributes to research and practical solutions by focusing on methods and instruments as well as theories of social media analytics by referring to the underlying social media analytics elements of ‘roles and actors’ as well as ‘topics and dynamics’. Here, RISE_SMA will address and make significant advances in two areas: (1) we develop a common theoretical model that helps to explain and predict user behavior in social media; (2) we focus on the most relevant methods and models to improve them by adapting them to the specific characteristics of social media data. As a result of both this, we develop open source software tools with graphical user interfaces that are accessible to researchers and practitioners.
Social media have become an important part of daily life of millions and influences the way people get and share information. Advanced theoretical approaches and methods for analyzing social media data are especially relevant for the two areas addressed in RISE_SMA: (1) society and (2) crisis communication. In recent years, communication in social media has been shown to have a massive impact on society, and particularly on citizen’s decision-making processes, enabling new forms of public discourse and information dissemination but also challenging societal cohesion by supporting the rapid dissemination of ‘fake news’ and other unsubstantiated information, by human actors as well as bots. The development and deployment of more advanced analytical frameworks for the study of social media and their uses in public communication is therefore now one of the most pressing challenges for researchers working at the nexus of media and communication studies and computer science, and the present project directly addresses that challenge.
RISE_SMA contributes to research and practical solutions by focusing on methods and instruments as well as theories of social media analytics by referring to the underlying social media analytics elements of ‘roles and actors’ as well as ‘topics and dynamics’. Here, RISE_SMA will address and make significant advances in two areas: (1) we develop a common theoretical model that helps to explain and predict user behavior in social media; (2) we focus on the most relevant methods and models to improve them by adapting them to the specific characteristics of social media data. As a result of both this, we develop open source software tools with graphical user interfaces that are accessible to researchers and practitioners.
In the first reporting period, a modular software prototype was developed to identify and analyze roles, actors, and topics in social media in an efficient and transparent way. Moreover, contributions have been made to the development of the theoretical underpinnings of social media analytics under the perspective of roles, actors, and topics. The motivations and dynamics of information dissemination across platform borders have been analyzed. A tool for advanced data extraction and analysis for society-related communication is currently being implemented. The results of the project have been published in leading journals and conference proceedings and were discussed at the 2020 AAA Annual Meeting.
The automatization of workflows or the increasing use of artificial intelligence confronts society with several challenges. The digital transformation of our communication and the advent of ubiquitous social media lead to the continuous generation of huge amounts of heterogeneous social data (various media formats, upcoming new platforms, changing communication concepts in social media) and a feeling of information overload among a lot of people. It is obvious that the change in our communication behavior leads to the exponential development of anti-social phenomena such as hate speech, propaganda dissemination (through bots) or fake news. The diffusion of wrong information is especially harmful in situations in which social media is used to, for example, assist emergency service agencies during a crisis e.g. a terrorist attack or a pandemic. RISE_SMA has contributed to a better understanding of the influence of roles and actors and the evolvement of topics and dynamics to protect societies in the EU to be damaged by these developments. And, at the same time, RISE_SMA has uncovered potentials for improving public discourses and communication processes in crisis situations will not be exploited.
The extraction and understanding of relevant information from social media data is not only difficult for organizations and individuals, but also for academics. RISE_SMA has advanced the field of research by combining useful methods and theoretical concepts from various disciplines to address these challenges. RISE_SMA has gathered the necessary researchers to make significant steps forward in this underdeveloped field and it consolidates efforts from specialists from information systems, computer engineering, and communication and media science with different national backgrounds and created new methods and a better understanding of the current societal dynamics related to social media. RISE_SMA generates high impact in the EU by providing organizations with newly developed innovative software tools, designed to gather, analyze, and condense social media data for organizations on the society-level (such as municipalities) and crisis communication (such as emergency service agencies).
The extraction and understanding of relevant information from social media data is not only difficult for organizations and individuals, but also for academics. RISE_SMA has advanced the field of research by combining useful methods and theoretical concepts from various disciplines to address these challenges. RISE_SMA has gathered the necessary researchers to make significant steps forward in this underdeveloped field and it consolidates efforts from specialists from information systems, computer engineering, and communication and media science with different national backgrounds and created new methods and a better understanding of the current societal dynamics related to social media. RISE_SMA generates high impact in the EU by providing organizations with newly developed innovative software tools, designed to gather, analyze, and condense social media data for organizations on the society-level (such as municipalities) and crisis communication (such as emergency service agencies).