Information School News

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly will give a talk entitled  Digital Contention in a divided society: social media, parades and protests in Northern Ireland on the 25th February, 4-5pm, for the Interdisciplinary Digital Research Group at Dublin City University. The talk is part of their 2021 Hybrid Research Seminar Series, featuring new books and research projects in the interdisciplinary space of humanities and social sciences. How are platforms such as Facebook and Twitter used by citizens to frame contentious parades and protests in ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland? What do these contentious episodes tell us about the potential of information and communication technologies to promote positive intergroup contact in the deeply divided society? These are the questions addressed in the talk. Register to attend this event (via Zoom) here: https://dcu-ie.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lHqPCJ4LRoO-bl-thpOUfw

Media: Dr Paul Reilly on the BBC talking about #fakenews  During the pandemic, our Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has seen a lot of interest in his specialism of fake news in social media. Dr Reilly was featured on the BBC this week discussing Twitter's decision to classify some of Donald Trump's Tweets as 'unsubstantiated'. You can read more about his appearances on his blog here. If you would like to speak to any of our academic staff about their research areas please contact our Marketing Officer.

The 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society was held earlier this month in Copenhagen, Denmark. Dr Wasim Ahmed, recent Information School PhD graduate (now assistant Professor at Northumbria University) presented his PhD work at the conference and his trip was funded by the Information School. The paper Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks was co-authored by Head of School and Professor of Health Informatics Peter Bath, and Dr Laura Sbaffi. You can access the paper here .

PhD student Wasim Ahmed, Professor Peter Bath, and Dr Gianluca Demartini have recently had a peer-reviewed book chapter published which looked at the ethical, legal, and methodological challenges of researching Twitter. The chapter is now open access, and the abstract and the link to download the chapter are provided below. Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the specific legal, ethical, and privacy issues that can arise when conducting research using Twitter data. Existing literature is reviewed to inform those who may be undertaking social media research. We also present a number of industry and academic case studies in order to highlight the challenges that may arise in research projects using social media data. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the process that was followed to gain ethics approval for a Ph.D. project using Twitter as a primary source of data. By outlining a number of Twitter-specific research case studies, the chapter will be a valuable res...

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has published a piece for Democratic Audit UK on the role of social media in the Kingsmill bread video row, which culminated in the resignation of Sinn Fein MP Barry McElduff last week. Dr Reilly argues that this incident illustrates how hybrid media logics operate in Northern Ireland, with professional journalists increasingly using social media such as Twitter not only to source stories, but also to hold politicians to account for what they post online. The post can be found here

Doctoral student Wasim Ahmed and Professor Peter Bath , pictured below, from the Health Informatics Research Group, recently delivered a talk at a CERN workshop in Geneva . The talk was based on the industry and academic perspectives on social media research ethics, and the also talk highlighted the approach that has been undertaken by the University of Sheffield.  Wasim Ahmed , pictured below, also presented a poster on his PhD research during the CERN workshop. Wasim’s poster was based on his PhD research which is examining how people talk about infectious disease outbreaks such as Swine Flu and Ebola on Twitter. Wasim also touched on the benefits of engaging with research blogs such as the LSE Impact blog .

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has had an article published in a new report on the 2017 UK General Election edited by Einar Thorsen, Dan Jackson and Darren Lilleker from Bournemouth University. This rapid response report features 92 contributions from over 100 UK and international academics. Paul's article presents some preliminary findings from a study of 1,842 tweets posted during the BBC Northern Ireland Leaders’ Debate, which took place a few days before polling day. ‘ It explores the response of Northern Irish tweeters to statements made by the representatives of the main political parties during the debate. The article can be accessed here  and the full report is available to download from here

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly is giving an invited research seminar at the Faculty of Media & Communication at Bournemouth University on Wednesday 24th May, 4-5pm. The talk is entitled 'Social media and contentious parades in divided societies: Tweeting the 2014 and 2015 Ardoyne parade disputes.' The abstract for Paul's talk is below: To what extent do social media facilitate debate between Catholics and Protestants about contentious parades and protests in post-conflict Northern Ireland? Do these ‘affective publics’ tend to escalate or de-escalate the tensions caused by these events? This paper addsresses these issues through a qualitative study of how citizens used Twitter in response to contentious Orange Order parades in the Ardoyne district of North Belfast in 2014 and 2015. Twitter provided a platform for ‘affective publics’ who expressed a myriad of sentiments towards the Orange Order, in addition to the residents who opposed the loyalist parade passing the...

Extract taken from the LSE Impact blog: Following his initial post on this topic in 2015, Wasim Ahmed has updated and expanded his rundown of the tools available to social scientists looking to analyse social media data. A number of new applications have been released in the intervening period, with the increasing complexity of certain research questions also having prompted some tools to increase their data retrieval functionalities. Although platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp have more active users, Twitter’s unique infrastructure and the near-total availability of its data have ensured its popularity among researchers remains high. You can read the full post here .

Nick Pickles, Twitter UK Head of Public Policy, referred to the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council funded study 'Social Media, Parades and Protest' led by Dr Paul Reilly during an interview about the microblogging site on BBC Good Morning Ulster last Friday,  22nd January 2016.  The report. co-authored by independent researcher Dr Orna Young, explored the potential role of social media in providing accurate, real-time information to residents affected by controversial parades and protests. Dr Reilly was responsible for the collection and analysis of Twitter data in the report. Key findings included: Twitter provided users with an array of information sources courtesy of the citizen and professional journalists who were tweeting their perspectives on events as they unfolded. The latter were more influential in these information flows, primarily due to the high number of retweets for content produced by journalists from BBC NI and UTV;  Ci...

A blog post written by PhD student Wasim Ahmed , with the help of a Masters student Alexandra Boutopoulou , both whom study at the Information School, was tweeted out by Paul Mason Economics Editor at Channel 4 News. The post analysed the #ThisIsACoup hashtag, and highlighted important users whom helped drive the hashtag to become viral. The blog post was a collaborative effort with help from John Swain , head of Data Science at Yang Brothers, Visibrain Focus whom provided the data via Twitter’s Firehose API. Find out more here .

Wasim Ahmed, a first year PhD student at the Information School and member of the Health Informatics Research Group, has recently been featured in a White Rose Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) newsletter in the White Rose DTC PhD Researchers In The News section. The newsletter highlights Wasim’s recent impact activities such as his LSE impact blog post , his very successful research blog and his management of both the @iFutures2015 and the @DataPowerConf Twitter accounts, including the moderation of a Twitter chat which was a first for a University conference. The feature highlights Wasim’s membership of the ‘New Social Media New Social Science’   network, and his management of the @NSMNSS Twitter account which has over 3,600 strong followers comprised of researchers across disciplines from around the world. The newsletter also acknowledges collaborations Wasim has set up with researchers across continents from Europe, the Americas, and Australia which have generated po...

The World Economic Forum has recognised the contribution of Dr Farida Vis to its flagship Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014 publication. The report highlights Farida's research into the spread of rumours on Twitter during the London riots.