Article Analysis #1

“Pandemics in the Age of Twitter:

Content Analysis of Tweets during the 2009 H1N1 Outbreak” Analysis

APA Citation

Cynthia Chew and Gunther Eysenbach, “Pandemics in the Age of Twitter: Content Analysis of Tweets during the 2009 H1N1 Outbreak,” PLoS ONE 5, no. 11 (November 29, 2010): e14118.

Purpose:

The goals of this study was to use “infoveillance” to 1) monitor the use and adoption of the terms “H1N1” versus “swine flu”; 2) complete an analysis of tweets during the H1N1 outbreak; 3) validate Twitter as “a real-time content, sentiment, and public attention trend-tracking tool”.

Methods:

The researchers used, Infovigil, a program that continually gathers information from Twitter and stores relevant data in a database.  Tweets were gathered from May 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009 using the keywords and hashtags: “swine flu”, “swineflu” and “H1N1”.  After Twitter data was collected, it was all coded and statistically analyzed.

Main Findings:

This study found that between May 1 and December 31^st, 2009 found a significant increase in the number of tweets using the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended H1N1 terminology to replace “swine flu”.  Also, coding data into six content categories allowed for the analysis of specific attitudes, feelings and experiences expressed using Twitter throughout the H1N1 outbreak.  The study found an increase in tweets sharing resources and personal experiences, but the amount of jokes, humor, frustration, downplayed risk and personal opinions/interest decreased over the time of the study.  Specific news/events caused significant peaks in Twitter activity including: 1) WHO’s Pandemic Level 6 announcement; 2) vaccination experiences upon the arrival of vaccines; and 3) news story of an actor from “Harry Potter” having H1N1.

Analysis:

I really enjoyed this article because it emphasizes the significance and importance of use of Twitter and other social networking sites as being a place people turn to for all kinds of information, especially health related news and information.  This study provided an abundance of helpful information about how to use Twitter to gather data on a specific topic, how to code the data and effective methods of statistically analyzing the data.  For my TECH 621 course project and maybe even my thesis project, I am hoping to look at emergency preparedness and management uses within social network sites (SNS).

Some limitations of this article relate to demographics and the reach of SNS.  Specifically, 69% of Twitter users are Caucasian and 58% make over $60K a year, which implies that the majority of the content analyzed is coming from wealthy, Caucasians and isn’t representative of minority groups and individuals of lower SES.  Also, there was no existing validated sampling method for Twitter, prior to this study, so researchers had to improvise.

Overall, I loved this article and enjoyed learning about how Tweets can be analyzed to find information about beliefs, behaviors and attitudes in real-time about pandemic H1N1.

TECH 621: Taxonomy of Social Network Sites

After a fairly extensive review of all the varieties of social network sites (SNSs) available on the internet, I quickly began to group and organize the hundreds and thousands of sites into a few basic groups.

1) Reviews/Feedback

One of the most useful components of social network sites to consumers.  How many times have you wondered about the quality of food at a new restaurant, the cost effectiveness of an item, or the quality of service at a hotel?  I find myself wanting to find answers to these types of questions all the time.  So I turn to websites that offer this information such as Amazon.com and Yelp.  Other SNSs that focus on providing reviews to large audiences include: Mouth Shut for consumer reviews, Flixster for movie reviews, Car Gurus for vehicle reviews and many, many more.

2) News

Social networking sites also provide the ability for news to be shared through non-traditional media.  Fifty years ago, the only options for receiving up-to-date news coverage was from the newspaper, radio, or television broadcasts.  The news of the 21st century is up to the second, worldwide coverage, coming from hundreds of websites simultaneously.  Some examples of SNSs that present news include: Twitter, Mashable, Politics for All and White House Blog.  Almost every news website has some feature of SNSs like a comment or feedback section that enables the individual user to post relevant links or add additional information.

3) Interpersonal Connection

A growing trend of the 21st century is obtaining interpersonal connections through social network sites.  With Facebook, Twitter, My Space and so many other social media networks it is much easier to stay in touch with old friends, family and meet new people.  As a user on these sites, you can let all of your friends/followers know what you are doing/thinking at any point in time.  Although I mentioned some of the more popular SNSs, an endless number of others exist such as: My Yearbook, Open Diary, Geni, MyLife, Hi5, eHarmony, and Chemistry.com.

4) Special Interests

If you can think of a special interest or hobby, you are almost guaranteed to find a social network site devoted to that special interest.  Everything from gaming to cats to sports has a blog devoted to it.  These special interest social network sites can be especially helpful for people who are trying to find support for a rare illness or the best treatment options for a disease.  This category is very diverse and can encompass support or competition depending on the special interest topic. Some examples include: Swim Room, MapMyRide, Diabetic Connect, TravellersPoint, Patients Like Me and GovLoop.

5) Idea Sharing

Last but not least, idea sharing through social network sites can provide instantaneous feedback with a complete global perspective.  Originally, I coupled idea sharing with the news category, but after thinking about it, idea sharing is such a complex process that can involve so many different people that it truly deserves its own category.  As we discussed in class, Enterprise 2.0 is a great example of the positive effects of idea sharing.  Enterprise 2.0, is basically a private social network for a business that is used for collaboration in the work place.  Other idea sharing SNSs include: Academia.edu and Quora.

After categorizing some of the social network sites that students from the class collected, I began to realize that many of these sites fall into more than one of the above mentioned categories.  The complexity and variety of design of the many social network sites is a major reason why they are so popular today.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts and ideas, if you have any comments, please let me know!  Have a happy day!

Hello world!

As a requirement for TECH 621: Social Internet, I must create my own blog.  Frightening assignment for me due to my lack of tech savvy skills.  However, I am looking forward to figuring out how to change my very plain background and figuring out what blogging is all about. 🙂