twitter analysis #mh192
DESCRIPTION
Twitter analysis of the incident involving Malaysia Airlines flight MH-192.TRANSCRIPT
1. Preface...........................................................................................................................32. Selection.........................................................................................................................33. Timeline..........................................................................................................................3
3.1 Timeline of events.....................................................................................................33.2 Tweet volume...........................................................................................................5
4. Content analysis.............................................................................................................64.1 Twitter clients...........................................................................................................64.2 Influential twitter accounts.......................................................................................64.3 Tweets......................................................................................................................74.4 Hashtags...................................................................................................................84.5 Languages................................................................................................................84.6 Links.........................................................................................................................9
4.6.1 Websites..........................................................................................................104.7 Geo location............................................................................................................11
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 2
1. PrefaceOn Sunday April 20, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH-192 suffered a tyre failure on takeoff from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia. The airplane, a Boeing 737-800, entered a holding pattern over sea to the west of Kuala Lumpur. After burning fuel, the airplane landed safely. None of the 159 passengers and 7 crew members were injured.
While the airplane was still in the air, people on Twitter started discussing Flight MH192. Photos of tyre debris began circulating, along with screen shots of flight tracking websites that showed MH192 circling in a holding pattern. When the airplane was still in the air, Malaysia Airlines already issued statements on Twitter and Facebook.
This report analyses over 130.000 tweets that were sent while the incident unfolded, and in the hours following the safe landing.
! Please note this document uses comma (,) as decimal mark and full stop (.) as thousands separator.
2. SelectionUsing the official Twitter API all tweets were selected that contained the terms:
MH192 OR PrayforMH192
This way tweets are selected using e.g. both the word 'MH192' as well as the hashtag '#MH192'.
Tweets were selected on an eight hour time frame, from April 20, 23:12 hours local Malaysian time, which was time of the first tweet on the incident, until April 21, 07:12 hours.
This resulted in a selection of 131.147 tweets. The actual amount of tweets related to the incident was much higher, since tweets with a general reference to the incident are not included. E.g. "I am glad the plan landed safely."The current dataset however sufficiently captures the essence of the event. And the specific keywords used, resulted in a dataset with a very high precision. Most, if not all, tweets were related to the MH192 incident.
3. Timeline
3.1 Timeline of events
Time (MYT)
hh:mm since takeoff time
Event
April 20 Malaysian time
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 3
22:19 - MH192 take off from Kuala Lumpur Airport, bound for Bangalore, India
22:29 00:10 MH192 enters holding pattern at 14.000 feet23:10 00:51 First approach low pass carried out over runway 32L
23:12 00:53 First tweet: "@MAS What's happened to MH192? Why has it turned back? http://t.co/TWpitn52Cl"
23:33 01:14 @kam_al_gojo first to tweet #PrayForMH192 hashtagApril 21 Malaysian time00:39 02:20 First tweet from Malaysia Airlines (@MAS) about MH192
00:41 02:22 @inquirerdotnet (Philippines news channel) first media to report the incident
01:24 03:05 MH192 leaves holding pattern at 7000 feet, descends towards airport
01:38 03:19 First tweet from Minister Tranport (@HishammuddinH2O)
01:42 03:23 MH192 carries out second approach and low pass over runway 32L
01:44 03:25 Second tweet from Malaysia Airlines (media statement)01:56 03:37 MH192 carries out safe landing on runway 32L
Time (MYT)
hh:mm since landing time
Event
02:07 00:11 Third tweet from Malaysia Airlines (about safe landing)02:08 00:12 MH192 tweets top at 2121 tweets per minute (35+ per second)
03:39 01:43 @H2OComms tweets Minister's @HishammuddinH2O arrival at airport
04:17 02:21 @H2OComms tweets Minister @HishammuddinH2O meeting with passengers
04:25 02:29 @H2OComms tweets Minister @HishammuddinH2O meeting with crew
07:06 05:10 Twitter account @prayformh192 created15:27 13:31 Twitter account @mh192_ created
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 4
fig. 1 flight track of MH192
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 5
3.2 Tweet volume
The first hour after the initial tweet about MH192 was quiet until Malaysia Airlines posted a tweet at 00:39. Online buzz increased significantly until just after the plane landed safely.
fig. 2 Number of tweets per ten minutes
The number of potential impressions (number of times a tweet could have been displayed in a user’s timeline) shows a roughly similar trend. The peaks in the early morning were caused by news channels with a high number of followers and continuing tweets of Minister of Transport Hussein.
fig. 3 Number of tweets per ten minutes (blue) and potential impressions per ten minutes (green)
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 6
4. Content analysis
4.1 Twitter clients
The majority of tweets were published on mobile devices. Twitter's own app for Android, iPhone/iPad and Blackberry alone was responsible for 73% of all tweets .The ten most used Twitter clients were used to publish about 93% of all tweets.
Twitter client tweets PercentageTwitter for Android 57.419 43,8%Twitter for iPhone 25.001 19,1%web 17.867 13,6%Twitter for BlackBerry® 6.505 5%Twitter for iPad 3.953 3%Twitter for Android Tablet 2.733 2,1%TweetCaster for Android 2.534 1,9%Mobile Web (M2) 2.354 1,8%TweetDeck 2.169 1,7%twitterfeed 1.396 1,1%other 9.216 6,9%
4.2 Influential twitter accounts
Which twitter accounts had the highest number of potential impressions (number of times a tweet could have been displayed in a user’s timeline) when tweeting about MH192? News accounts are topping the chart:
Impressions
Tweets Twitter name Name (from
bio) Bio10.275.281 5 @gmanews GMA News News channel,
Philippines7.138.828 1 @detikcom Detikcom News channel,
Indonesia6.618.420 1 @BreakingNews Breaking
NewsBreak news channel of NBC
6.507.371 9 @bharianmy Berita Harian News channel, Malaysia5.732.420 3 @ndtv NDTV News channel, India5.044.681 4 @ANCALERTS ABS-CBN
News ChannelNews channel, Philippines
3.233.190 5 @ HishammuddinH2O Hishammuddin Hussein Minister of Transport
2.710.177 1 @ElUniversal El Universal News channel, Venezuela
2.319.929 2 @SkyNewsBreak Sky News Newsdesk News channel, U.K.
2.280.383 8 @tunfaisal _ Tun FaisalMember of UMNO political party in Malaysia
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 7
4.3 Tweets
Malaysia Airlines’ tweets had by far the highest number of retweets:
1. 02:07 hours: Official statement by the airline after landing
2. 00:39 hours: First official statement by the airline
3. 01:58 hours: Malaysian singer Hafiz Hamidun tweets about MH192
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 8
4.4 Hashtags
The top ten hashtags used in tweets related to MH192 were:
Hashtag Tweets Percentage
#mh192 44.575 34%#prayformh192 39.379 30%#masalert 11.617 5,9%#doakanmh192 1.933 1,5%#mh370 1.788 1,4%#nationtv 1.471 1,1%#prayformh370 1.281 1%#prayforsouthkorea 563 0,4%#mas 428 0,3%#ggmu 338 0,3%
Many hashtags were related to prayers. Either in English (prayerfor...) or in Malay (doakan...)Some were even relating the MH192 incident with other recent accidents like the recent sinking of a ferry near South Korea, as reflected in '#prayforsouthkorea'. Or with references to flight MH370 which disappeared on March 8. The hashtag #ggmu was used by Malaysian singer Hafiz Hamidun who wished his followers good night, reflecting on both the safe landing of MH192 and the fact that Manchester United lost a match (GGMU = 'Glory Glory Manchester United')
4.5 Languages
The majority of tweets were written in the English and Indian language.
fig. 4 Tweet language percentages
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 9
4.6 Links
Some 29.000 links were shared in tweets relating to MH192.
Tweets Link Content
1.632
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlreUg_CQAMtaps.jpg
1.560
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Blra7TnCYAAgvoo.png
1.187
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Blrkx90IgAEti6-.jpg
1.176 http://fr24.com/MAS192
623
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlriLLuCMAApEHO.png
621
http://news.detik.com/read/2014/04/21/034822/2560127/1148/mh192-alami-pecah-ban-saat-lepas-landas-puing-ban-berserakan-di-landasan
575
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlrZ7DQCMAABVXo.jpg
462 http://www.flightradar24.com/MAS192/327a227
440
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Blrp4wlIMAAR42W.png
425
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlreFp-CAAAwjx6.png
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 10
4.6.1 Websites
Most of the 29.000 links that were shared in tweets contained references to social media. Be it photos, videos, or Facebook posts.
tweets domain (website) remarks17.949 twitter.com Photo's posted through Twitter
2.467 facebook.com Facebook posts
1.904 www.fr24.com Flightradar24 flight tracking website
748 www.youtube.com Youtube video's621 news.detik.com Detiknews (Indonesian news website)494 liveatc.net Live Air Traffic Control audio
276 instagram.com Instagram photo's262 www.ndtv.com NDTV (Indian news)235 blogspot.com spam link
207 www.thestar.com.my The Star Online (Malaysian news website)
A further categorization shows the relatively small amount of references to news website as compared to for instance flight tracking websites and user generated content like photos.
fig. 5 Link categories
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 11
4.7 Geo location
Twitter gives users the option of automatically adding geographical coordinates when posting a tweet. This shows the (approximate) location of the user at the time the tweet was posted. A total of 1.704 tweets (1,3%) contained geographical coordinates. A mapping of these tweets shows there was attention for MH192 from all over the world, but obviously the majority in Malaysia.
fig. 6 Tweets with longitude, latitude coordinates plotted on a world map
fig. 6 Tweets with longitude, latitude coordinates in Malaysia
Twitter Analysis #MH192 / the Aviation Safety Network 12