SAMANTHA FINN AND ENI MUSTAFARAJWELLESLEY COLLEGE

P R E S E N T E D AT M S M 2 0 1 3C O - L O C AT E D W I T H A C M H Y P E R T E X T 2 0 1 3

PA R I S , F R A N C E

Visualizing Co-Retweeting Behavior for Recommending Relevant Real-Time Content

“Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the Web for raising money… But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.”

- New York Times Article, How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power

How to become the US President

The US Presidential Debates

Debates important events in the election

Second only to Super Bowl in TV watch

Since the first televised debates in 1960, many defining moments people remember from the debates Al Gore rolling his eyes and sighing Reagan “There you go again” Bush Sr. looking at his watch

Memes During the 2012 Debates

Pew: 1/10 of viewers are dual-screeners

Source: Dispatch From the Denver Debate (blog.twitter.com)

Watching on Twitter: First Debate

Watching on Twitter: Second Debate

Source: Twitter at the Town Hall Debate (blog.twitter.com)

Watching on Twitter: Third Debate

Source: The Final 2012 Presidential Debate (blog.twitter.com)

Follow the Debate Through Hashtags (Or try to)

Interactive Chart

There are too many hashtags being created, and rising and falling in popularity during the debate to follow them all.

User Number Followers Tweets during the 3rd debate

ladygaga 30,572,024 2BarackObama 21,206,234 9YouTube 18,484,946 1twitter 13,993,216 1JimCarrey 9,256,715 1cnnbrk 9,051,349 4nytimes 6,350,936 8CNN 6,287,257 5PerezHilton 5,742,938 8MTV 5,725,897 2

Or by Following Famous Twitter Accounts

Popular, celebrity Twitter accounts are NOT the ones generating content during the debates.

Does More Followers Mean More Retweets?

Single person has a limited view

It would be impossible for a single person to discover and consume all the content about the debates (especially while trying to watch them)

Solution? Human computation

Human Computation

Using humans as computers to improve intelligent algorithms

Retweeting as recommendation Already existing Twitter construct Utilizing it for a new purpose

uA uB uC uD

u1 u2 u3 u4 u5

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

(tweeters)

(tweets)

(retweeters)

Going from a tweeting model…

To the Retweet Matrix…

uA uB uC uD

u1 2 1 0 0

u2 0 1 0 0

u3 1 0 1 0

u4 0 1 1 1

u5 0 0 1 2

Tweeting Users (items)

Retw

eeti

ng

Use

rs

(use

rs)

uA uB uC uD

uA 2 1 1 0

uB 3 1 1

uC 3 2

uD 2

To the Co-Retweet Matrix

Tweeting Users

Tw

eeti

ng

Use

rs

Co-Retweet Visualization

Nodes represent top retweeted accounts uA – uD

Edges mean that the connected nodes have been co-retweeted Weighted by how many

users have co-retweeted the two nodes

Created using Gephi

Step 1: Layout

Force Atlas Algorithm developed by

Gephi Force Directed layout Attraction between

connected nodes Repulsion between

unconnected nodesNodes with stronger

connections (more edges, heavier weight) are attracted to each other

Source: ForceAtlas2, A Graph Layout Algorithm for Handy Network Visualization

Step 2: Community

Modularity Algorithm to assign groups Detects communities

within a networkEach community has

a different color

Source Fast unfolding of communities in large networks

Step 3: Node Rank

Eigenvector centrality Measures the

influence of a node in the network based off the connections with that node

Similar to Google’s PageRank algorithm

Nodes are made larger and darker based on higher centrality values

Co-Retweet Graph of 2nd Debate

Interactive Graph

Co-Retweet Graph of 3rd Debate

Interactive Graph

Why a Co-Retweeting Model?

Co-retweeting focuses only on the content creators

Reveals the perceivedrelationships between accounts Unbiased media accounts

Co-Retweet Network vs. Retweet Network

Retweet network contains three types of accounts Users who

generate original content

Users who aggregate content by retweeting other sources

Users who do bothAuthorities vs.

Hubs

Retweeted Only48.0%

Wrote Original Tweets Only

41.2%

Both Wrote and Retweeted

10.8%

Authorities Hubs

Accounts writing tweets

Creating original content

Accounts retweeting content

Aggregating data from lots of sources

Sifting through and picking out content they find worth recommending

Comparing Content Creators to Retweeters

Applications of Recommender System

Given the set of users a person follows or has retweeted

Recommend additional users to follow during the debates

Useful for people who are not savvy with Twitter Don’t know the users to follow Or don’t generally focus on political content, only interested

during election seasonFocus on users who are creating interesting content

during the debates Might not be the users with millions of followers Or they don’t regularly tweet about politics

Have a record of the most interesting content of the debate, to browse based on your own interests

Are these accounts still tweeting about politics?

Politically Active34.6%

Nonpolitical65.4%

Of the top 1,500 retweeted accounts for the 16th and the 22nd, how many are still generating relevant political content?

Source: Finn, S., and Mustafaraj, E. 2012. Learning to Discover Political Activism in the Twitterverse. In KI-Künstliche Intelligenz 27 (1), 17-24

Conclusion

Massive amount of data on Twitter during the debates

Human computation to create recommender system

Co-retweeting connections reveal perceived relationships between accounts

Recommender system allows for easier and more meaningful consumption of data in real time

Future Work

Highlight the Accounts You Follow

Highlight the Accounts You Follow

Highlight the Accounts You Follow

Highlight the Accounts You Follow

Highlight the Accounts You Follow