Social media represent powerful tools of mass communication and information
diffusion. They played a pivotal role during recent social uprisings and
political mobilizations across the world. Here we present a study of the Gezi
Park movement in Turkey through the lens of Twitter. We analyze over 2.3
million tweets produced during the 25 days of protest occurred between May and
June 2013. We first characterize the spatio-temporal nature of the conversation
about the Gezi Park demonstrations, showing that similarity in trends of
discussion mirrors geographic cues. We then describe the characteristics of the
users involved in this conversation and what roles they played. We study how
roles and individual influence evolved during the period of the upheaval. This
analysis reveals that the conversation becomes more democratic as events
unfold, with a redistribution of influence over time in the user population. We
conclude by observing how the online and offline worlds are tightly
intertwined, showing that exogenous events, such as political speeches or
police actions, affect social media conversations and trigger changes in
individual behavior.
Description
Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval
%0 Generic
%1 varol2014evolution
%A Varol, Onur
%A Ferrara, Emilio
%A Ogan, Christine L.
%A Menczer, Filippo
%A Flammini, Alessandro
%D 2014
%K myown
%R 10.1145/2615569.2615699
%T Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.7197
%X Social media represent powerful tools of mass communication and information
diffusion. They played a pivotal role during recent social uprisings and
political mobilizations across the world. Here we present a study of the Gezi
Park movement in Turkey through the lens of Twitter. We analyze over 2.3
million tweets produced during the 25 days of protest occurred between May and
June 2013. We first characterize the spatio-temporal nature of the conversation
about the Gezi Park demonstrations, showing that similarity in trends of
discussion mirrors geographic cues. We then describe the characteristics of the
users involved in this conversation and what roles they played. We study how
roles and individual influence evolved during the period of the upheaval. This
analysis reveals that the conversation becomes more democratic as events
unfold, with a redistribution of influence over time in the user population. We
conclude by observing how the online and offline worlds are tightly
intertwined, showing that exogenous events, such as political speeches or
police actions, affect social media conversations and trigger changes in
individual behavior.
@conference{varol2014evolution,
abstract = {Social media represent powerful tools of mass communication and information
diffusion. They played a pivotal role during recent social uprisings and
political mobilizations across the world. Here we present a study of the Gezi
Park movement in Turkey through the lens of Twitter. We analyze over 2.3
million tweets produced during the 25 days of protest occurred between May and
June 2013. We first characterize the spatio-temporal nature of the conversation
about the Gezi Park demonstrations, showing that similarity in trends of
discussion mirrors geographic cues. We then describe the characteristics of the
users involved in this conversation and what roles they played. We study how
roles and individual influence evolved during the period of the upheaval. This
analysis reveals that the conversation becomes more democratic as events
unfold, with a redistribution of influence over time in the user population. We
conclude by observing how the online and offline worlds are tightly
intertwined, showing that exogenous events, such as political speeches or
police actions, affect social media conversations and trigger changes in
individual behavior.},
added-at = {2014-07-01T09:05:04.000+0200},
author = {Varol, Onur and Ferrara, Emilio and Ogan, Christine L. and Menczer, Filippo and Flammini, Alessandro},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2295e2c1fd9618fce486d468b7121efe9/onurvarol},
description = {Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval},
doi = {10.1145/2615569.2615699},
interhash = {04730448f575368493c358fd05b10930},
intrahash = {295e2c1fd9618fce486d468b7121efe9},
keywords = {myown},
note = {cite arxiv:1406.7197Comment: Best Paper Award at ACM Web Science 2014},
timestamp = {2014-07-01T09:05:04.000+0200},
title = {Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval},
url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.7197},
year = 2014
}