Internet Archive Network Visualization Project
Crowdsourcing social media network visualizations at the Internet Archive.
Social media network data visualization now has its own collection at the Internet Archive and we are looking for contributions.
When I started making visualizations of Twitter networks with gephi, I was fortunate to have guidance from several researchers in Mexico who have been doing this kind of research for years. Analysis can be complicated and it helps to study previous work to learn how to interpret results.
In May, I published Automating Hate which featured gephi graphs of a twitterbot called AgendaOfEvil. Shortly after I posted that blog, my colleague Alberto Escorcia from LoQueSigue in Mexico City wrote me and said the formations in Automating Hate resembled patterns he found in a bot-driven hashtag in Mexican Twitter that caused significant problems which he published about in January. The similar patterns suggested the presence of automation in both hashtags.
Alberto and I started brainstorming about creating a database of social media network visualizations from around the world so we can compare work and learn from others doing similar research.
Thanks to Mark Graham at the Internet Archive, we created the Social Media Network Dataviz collection to which we will be adding visualizations and inviting others to add their own work. If you are working with gephi or similar network visualization software and studying social media networks (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) and want to add your work to this collection, contact me on Twitter at @3r1nG.
So far I’ve added 2 archives, #Nieto122 which I’ve blogged about previously here on Medium and a collection of gephi network graphs from #NetNeutrality trends in May 2017 which I have not previously published. Alberto Escorcia is also uploading older visualizations from Mexican Twitter.
All new contributors should put as much data about each visualization as possible with every new archive. Here’s an example of the details I included about the dataset with my #NetNeutrality visualizations.
Contributors can write in any language they prefer. Network visualizations look similar in every language and we can work out translations of the datasets.
I normally only add a few visualizations per blog on Medium and I’ll continue to post studies here but I usually create many graphs that don’t make it into my blogs.
Since this project is still in very early stages, we may make some changes as we go, but I hope it can become a resource for others doing this kind of research around the world so we can all learn from each other and collaborate together.
