Analysis of discourses in social media
Interdisciplinary Research Project
| Period | May 2012 to April 2015 |
| Conductor | Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt (University of Münster) Prof. Dr. Stefan Stieglitz (University of Münster) Prof. Dr. Christoph Neuberger (University of Munich) Prof. Dr. Manfred Stede (University of Potsdam) |
| Assistance | Elisabeth Günther M.Sc. (University of Münster) |
| Institutions | Department of Communication (University of Münster) Department of Information Systems (University of Münster) Department of Communication Science and Media Research (University of Munich) Department of Linguistics (University of Potsdam) |
| Funding | Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) |
| Tags | Social Media, Gatekeeper Research, Discourse Analysis, Methods of Communication Studies |
Abstract
Manual and automated methods for analyzing social networks on the Internet are the focus of the project "Discourse Analysis in Social Media". The goal is not only a thematic examination of the content, but also the development of new methods of analysis. This is a collaborative project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with the computer linguist Professor Manfred Dtehle (Potsdam), the business information scientist Professor Stefan Stieglitz (Münster) and the communication scientist Professor christoph Neuberger (Munich).
The opportunities of public communication have been extended by social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. On the internet journalistic “gatekeepers” are not central mediators of topics and opinions anymore.
In principle, individual and collective actors of all kinds can participate in public discourses as speakers. Hence, processes and structures of the public are subject to change. Issues and the formation of opinions take different courses than in classical media. At the same time the internet offers a higher degree of transparency. Thus, vast amounts of digital texts can be evaluated automatically.
The goal of the project network is to develop an automated analysis process and evaluate it. The process should be implemented in the form of tools for the analysis of online discourses.
Method
The quantitative content analysis is a manually-conducted standard research method from the field of communication studies that requires vast amounts of both time and money. This is no less the case with qualitative methods used in discourse analysis, which are also used in other social sciences. In order to approach this limitation, the two communication-oriented partners cooperate with representatives from two different research fields, which introduce various methodical approaches.
Research in the field of information systems allows the collection of large amounts of data from different social media applications (data tracking) and is able to structure these data via automated network analysis.
Computer linguistics provides methods for the analysis of sentiments and discourse qualities. Furthermore, an automated method for content analysis based on inductive text classification is to be refined. Also, manual methods will be utilized for evaluative purposes.
Altogether, the project seeks to make versatile and comparative analyses of public discourses on the micro, meso, and macro levels possible.