Using Digital Methods to Analyze Danish Political Alignment via Facebook
On the 18th of November Jakob Bæk Kristensen, researcher at ETHOS Lab, will give a lecture and subsequently conduct a workshop about collecting, analyzing and visualizing public Facebook data. The lecture is based on his master’s thesis, which explored the potential for combining experimental computational methods with traditional, in-depth critical theory. The workshop will offer an opportunity to try-out some of the Python based tools that were developed as part of the thesis.
You can show that you are going via the Facebook event here.
Sign up for the workshop on Python tools here.
Lecture: Big Data as method, Habermas as theory
Time: November 18 2015, 12:00-13:30
Place: Auditorium 3
The event will be in English.
The world of computer science and statistical analysis is often disconnected from the world of humanities and approaches such as critical theory. With the increasing popularity of the social web, which has caused communicative actions and social behavior to be available in the form of digital data, the incentive for taking advantage of such rich data sources in social research is stronger than ever. The lecture will present an empirical study of public Facebook pages in relation to Danish media and politics. The study has sought to create experimental, computational methods that can work with a theoretical framework informed by traditional communication research and critical theory.
Workshop: Trying out Python tools for extraction, analysis and visualization of public Facebook data
Time: November 18 2015, 14:00-17:00
Place: 3A-54
The event will be in English. Sign-up required, see below.
A complete set of standardized tools for gathering, analyzing and visualizing data from Facebook, as well as any social media, has yet to be made. For this reason a range of experimental tools have been designed specifically for working with data from public Facebook data. All tools are based on Python and uses standard SQL for querying.
During the workshop participants will work with a selection of Python scripts that can gather, analyze and create visualizations of data from public Facebook pages belonging to media institutions, political parties and politicians. No programming experience is necessary. The goal of the analysis is to discover patterns of interaction in relation to the political like-history of Danish Facebook users. The scripts are open source and can be reconfigured or used to collect data from pages of ones own choosing.
Sign up for the workshop here.
Details about the workshop will be sent to participants prior to the actual event. No technical skills are necessary to use the tools, and all levels of IT-user are welcome.
Resources for the workshop:
The ETHOS Facebook collector: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b6xlbr09zc9jp06/AACwItK3mvGLYrD-MS70J_5Ra?dl=0
Dataset on Danish Politicians on Facebook: https://jakobbaek.sharefile.com/d-s0702f46516f4273b (care, large dataset!)
Guide to installing Gephi: http://sumnous.github.io/blog/2014/07/24/gephi-on-mac/
ITU address here:
IT-University of Copenhagen
Rued Langgaardsvej 7
DK-2300 Copenhagen S