analysing user generated content for social science. generational “we sense” in the italian...

media&generationPRIN - National Research Project

8th International Conference on Sociocybernetics

COMPLEX SOCIAL SYSTEMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND WORLD FUTURES

Ciudad de México , MÉXICO, 23-27 June, 2008

Analysing User

Generated Content

for social science Generational “we sense” in the Italian blogosphere

Fabio Giglietto* - Luca Rossi - Giovani Boccia Artieri

LaRiCA / University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”





persistence/

easy to search/

addressed to an unknowable audience/

easy to replicate/

(boyd 2007)

Growing availability of

User Generated Content:

wesearch/scenario





wesearch/theoretical background

persistence invisible audiences replicability searchability

few Writings Printing press, newspapers Digital media

(pc, video-

cameras)

World Wide

Web + Google

many Writings World Wide Web + Blogs,

Flickr, YouTube

Digital media

(pc, video-

cameras)

World Wide

Web + Google





wesearch/methodology

Keywords Identification

Through 5 focus groups we’ve

identified 45 media products

to be used as keywords to

investigate online discourses






Query strings definition

a) Avoid unwanted responses (spam)

b) Obtain the full text of every blog

entry (yahoo pipes)

c) choose between chronological or “by

relevance” output





Storage of blog entries and retrieval of authors’

information

a) Incremental storage of RSS entries

b) Scraping of authors’ information


supported platforms:

Blogger ITA / ENG

Flickr ENG

Il Cannocchiale ENG

Libero ITA

Splinder ITA

Windows Live Space ENG

YouTube ENG





Content analysis of collected data

starting set of keyword: 45

retrieved blogs entries: 3000

cases with authors’ data: 928






media&generation/research

Is it possible to use ugc to

observe the emergence of the

generational discourse?

May specific media products get

user generated generational

discourses started?





media&generation/conclusions

Media products are anchors

for personal memories which

can be used in an individual

or a generational way.






“I chose to start the nursery class.

My nursery-syndrome and the fact that I

watched Candy Candy when I was a child,

made me choose this university degree ”(F. female 25 years old)






“And we who are in the age of 30’s, we

belong to the Tiger Mask generation, we

can’t change it […] We had good times,

watching cartoons and TV series that left

their mark. ”(A. male 32 years old)





media&generation/limits&possibilities

- average age of online content producers

- accuracy of published data

- automatically updated online profiles

- need of a more accurate filter technology

- privacy issue





media&generation/limits&possibilities

- users share their personal data online

- qualitative analysis of large quantity of data

- spontaneous data





http://[email protected]*

[email protected]

[email protected]

http://www.soc.uniurb.it/larica

analysing user generated content for social science. generational “we sense” in the italian...

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