The emergence of trends: the role of traditional media and social media
Researchers from the social computing group HP conducted a study in an attempt to find out how topics for discussion in social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) are born. They hypothesized that the themes are generated by influential users with a lot of friends, and then picked up by the others. But this hypothesis was not confirmed.
It turned out that the creation and distribution of trends is practically not influenced by the influence of users and the number of friends. In fact, themes in social media appear from traditional media. Twitter users act as filters and signal boosters.
In the appearance of a trend, the role is played not so much by the authors of the message or the frequency of tweets, but by the topic of the message itself. In the results, about 31% of all tweets on this topic are retweets. Thus, a popular topic is distributed in a viral manner from one circle of users to another.
Researchers analyzed the entire flow of tweets for 40 days last fall. They collected a database of 16.32 million tweets and made a list of 22 accounts that were sources of “trending” tweets. It turned out that 72% of these accounts are owned by major media outlets, such as CNN, the New York Times, El Pais and the BBC. Despite their relative popularity, these accounts have far fewer followers than the most famous Twitter users, such as Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama, or Lady Gaga.
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Here is a list of accounts that have published at least 50 topics that have become trends. The list is sorted by the ratio of retweets to the total number of messages.
Another topic to study was why most trends remain in the top for less than 40 minutes, while others remain relevant for much longer. It turned out that long-term popularity is inherent in a small number of topics that have one peculiarity: they are interesting only for a diverse audience. The researchers also found a way to predict the distribution of long-lived trends, as well as the total number of tweets and their growth over time.
It turned out that the creation and distribution of trends is practically not influenced by the influence of users and the number of friends. In fact, themes in social media appear from traditional media. Twitter users act as filters and signal boosters.
In the appearance of a trend, the role is played not so much by the authors of the message or the frequency of tweets, but by the topic of the message itself. In the results, about 31% of all tweets on this topic are retweets. Thus, a popular topic is distributed in a viral manner from one circle of users to another.
Researchers analyzed the entire flow of tweets for 40 days last fall. They collected a database of 16.32 million tweets and made a list of 22 accounts that were sources of “trending” tweets. It turned out that 72% of these accounts are owned by major media outlets, such as CNN, the New York Times, El Pais and the BBC. Despite their relative popularity, these accounts have far fewer followers than the most famous Twitter users, such as Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama, or Lady Gaga.
')
Here is a list of accounts that have published at least 50 topics that have become trends. The list is sorted by the ratio of retweets to the total number of messages.
Another topic to study was why most trends remain in the top for less than 40 minutes, while others remain relevant for much longer. It turned out that long-term popularity is inherent in a small number of topics that have one peculiarity: they are interesting only for a diverse audience. The researchers also found a way to predict the distribution of long-lived trends, as well as the total number of tweets and their growth over time.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/113911/
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