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SUMMARY:Nubo Influo - Developing a Computational Approach to Understanding
  Online Influence - Dr Martin Rehm (University Duisburg-Essen) and Dr Fran
 k Cornelissen (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20160617T110000Z
DTEND:20160617T123000Z
UID:TALK66283@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ella McPherson
DESCRIPTION:The rise of social media has led to a panoply of online commun
 ication spaces wherein individuals can communicate with one another. Addit
 ionally\, we argue that social media provide social opportunity spaces\, w
 herein individuals can  scale-up their professional (informal) learning\, 
 by exchanging information and connecting with other people. Moreover\, sch
 olars have increasingly acknowledged that the concept of social capital ca
 n contribute to our understanding of how these spaces develop and evolve o
 ver time. Yet\, while social media should – in theory – provide indivi
 duals with equal access to social capital formation\, an increasing amount
  of evidence suggests that dominant individuals and groups can control com
 munication\, and impose limits on other individuals’ opportunity to gain
  social capital.\n\nIn this context\, social network analysis has been wid
 ely used to assess social capital in social media. Furthermore\, an increa
 sing amount of studies has employed bibliometric techniques to assess the 
 overall content of communication on social media. However\, combining thes
 e two approaches is an underdeveloped area of research. Yet\, such a combi
 nation would allow to make inferences on how and to what extent dominant i
 ndividuals and groups can control communication on social media. Moreover\
 , while a wide range of algorithms are available to measure and assess dif
 ferent facets of social media\, their interpretation is not always straigh
 t forward. Furthermore\, the most widely used social network metrics captu
 ring an individual’s influence on a certain network structure (e.g. clos
 eness and betweenness) originate from face-to-face environments. The quest
 ion then arises about how these metrics translate into an online space\, w
 here (access to) information is largely open and free.\n\nIn order to addr
 ess these issues\, we employ a combination of social and bibliometric anal
 yses and propose a new “influencer index” to assess the impact of indi
 viduals on social media. During our talk\, we will elaborate on our method
 ological approach and provide first empirical evidence\, from an explorato
 ry study of 10 hashtag conversations on Twitter. The target audiences of t
 hese conversations are teachers and other actors from the domain of educat
 ion from seven different countries (US\, UK\, Australia\, New Zealand\, Ca
 nada\, The Netherlands and Germany).\n\nTo register\, "click here":www.smh
 r.sociology.cam.ac.uk/Reading%20Group/RwSMCornelissenRehm
LOCATION:SG2\, Alison Richard Building
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