a comparative study of users' microblogging behavior on sina weibo and twitter
TRANSCRIPT
Delft University of Technology
A Comparative Study of Users’ Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
UMAP, Montréal, July 2012
Qi Gao1, Fabian Abel1, Geert-Jan Houben1,Yong Yu2 1 Web Information Systems, Delft University of Technology
2 APEX lab, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
2 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
What we study: microblogging behavior
Wikipedia:Twitter Wikipedia:Sina_Weibo
340,000,000 500,000,000
100,000,000 250,000,000
What are the differences in Chinese and Western users’ microblogging behavior?
3 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Cultural differences
acting as a member of a group standing up for himself
Flickr:webei Flickr:semicharmed
4 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Data sources
follower/followee network
limited length of a post
repost/reply/like
use of URLs and hashtags
meta information (time, source)
5 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User modeling and analysis framework
Microblogging Platforms Semantic Web
Cultural Analytics
syntactic analysis
temporal analysis semantic analysis
sentiment analysis
Data Processing and User Profiling
topic/interest modeling
semantic enrichment
data acquisition
metadata extraction
user profile construction
multilingual NER
6 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User profiling
Profile
? What could go wrong? RT @DRUGE_REPORT Washington: White House seeks ‘Control’ over communication during ‘crisis’ #obama drudge.tw/LVZygj
7 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User profiling – syntactic characteristics
Profile
hashtag/URL # What could go wrong? RT @DRUGE_REPORT Washington: White House seeks ‘Control’ over communication during ‘crisis’ #obama drudge.tw/LVZygj
8 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User profiling – semantic characteristics
Profile
hashtag/URL #
entity
What could go wrong? RT @DRUGE_REPORT Washington: White House seeks ‘Control’ over communication during ‘crisis’ #obama drudge.tw/LVZygj
9 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User profiling – semantic characteristics
Profile
hashtag/URL #
entity
T topic
What could go wrong? RT @DRUGE_REPORT Washington: White House seeks ‘Control’ over communication during ‘crisis’ #obama drudge.tw/LVZygj
topic:organization
topic:person
topic:location
10 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User profiling – sentiment characteristics
Profile
hashtag/URL #
entity
T topic
What could go wrong? RT @DRUGE_REPORT Washington: White House seeks ‘Control’ over communication during ‘crisis’ #obama drudge.tw/LVZygj
sentiment
neutral
positive
negative
11 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
User profiling – temporal characteristics
Profile
hashtag/URL #
entity
T topic
What could go wrong? RT @DRUGE_REPORT Washington: White House seeks ‘Control’ over communication during ‘crisis’ #obama drudge.tw/LVZygj
sentiment
temporal information
12 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Analysis of users’ microblogging behavior
• Datasets • Microblog data collected from Sina Weibo and Twitter over a period of
three months • > 46 million micropost overall – 22m from Sina Weibo and 24m from
Twitter • a sample of 2616 Sina Weibo users and 1200 Twitter users
• Analyze and compare user behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter • on two levels (i) the entire user population and (ii) individual users • from different angles (i) syntactic, (ii) semantic, (iii) sentiment and (iv) temporal analysis • relate our findings to theories about cultural stereotypes (Hofstede’s
cultural dimensions)
13 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Cultural model: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
• Describes stereotypical cultural characteristics of nationalities
• Five core dimensions: • Power Distance (PDI) • Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV) • Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS) • Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) • Long-Term Orientation (LTO)
• Scores are relative wrt. other nationalities
geert-hofstede.com
14 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%users
0
0.01
0.1
1
avg
. num
ber o
f ha
shta
gs/U
RLs
per
pos
t
Hashtag-WeiboURL-WeiboHashtag-TwitterURL-Twitter
Hashtags and URLs are less frequently applied on Sina Weibo than on Twitter.
Users on Twitter are more triggered by hashtags and URLs when propagating information than on Sina Weibo.
hashtag-Weibo
hashtag-Twitter URL-Twitter
URL-Weibo
Syntactic analysis – what are the syntactical characteristics of messages?
15 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Hashtags and URLs are less frequently applied on Sina Weibo than on Twitter.
Users on Twitter are more triggered by hashtags and URLs when propagating information than on Sina Weibo.
Syntactic analysis – what are the syntactical characteristics of messages?
Cultural Differences
high collectivism (Sina Weibo)
high individualism (Twitter)
16 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Semantic analysis – what kind of topics are discussed?
The topics that users discuss on Sina Weibo are to a large extent related to locations and persons. In contrast to Sina Weibo, users on Twitter are talking more about organizations (such as companies, political parties).
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%users
0
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
avg.
num
ber o
f ent
ities
per
pos
t
WeiboTwitter
17 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Semantic analysis – what kind of topics are discussed?
The topics that users discuss on Sina Weibo are to a large extent related to locations and persons. In contrast to Sina Weibo, users on Twitter are talking more about organizations (such as companies, political parties).
Cultural Differences
high collectivism (Sina Weibo)
high individualism (Twitter)
18 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Sentiment analysis – what are the sentiment characteristics of microposts?
Sina Weibo users have a stronger tendency to publish positive messages than Twitter users.
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%users
0%
20%
40%
60%
80％
100%
ratio
of p
ositv
e po
sts Weibo
more negative posts
more positive posts
19 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Combining semantic and sentiment analysis
The difference is amplified when discussing ‘people’ or ‘location’, with Sina Weibo users even more positive and Twitter users more negative.
20 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Combining semantic and sentiment analysis
The difference is amplified when discussing ‘people’ or ‘location’, with Sina Weibo users even more positive and Twitter users more negative.
Cultural Differences
long-term orientation (Sina Weibo)
short-tem orientation (Twitter)
21 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Temporal analysis – how quickly do users propagate information?
Twitter users repost messages faster than Sina Weibo users.
time distance = trepost - toriginal post
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%users
0
0.1
1
10
100
1000
time
dist
ance
(in
hour
s) WeiboTwitter
22 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Temporal analysis – how quickly do users propagate information?
Twitter users repost messages faster than Sina Weibo users.
Cultural Differences
large degree of power distance (Sina Weibo)
low degree of power distance
(Twitter)
23 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Qi Gao et al. Information Propagation Cultures on Sina Weibo and Twitter. In Proceedings of ACM Web Science Conference 2012. Evanston, USA.
24 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Conclusion and future work
• What we did • user modeling framework for culture-aware user modeling based on
microblogging data • data-intensive analyses deliver valuable insights for multilingual and culture
-aware user modeling
• Findings • key differences between Chinese and US/Western users’ microblogging behavior
– e.g. Chinese microblogging activities are more positive and less ‘political’ • some of the differences can be explained with cultural model from social science
research – e.g. Hofstede: individualism vs. collectivism
• Future work: • develop personalized applications that are able to adapt to the cultural factors
25 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
[email protected] @wisdelft
Thank You! Q & A
Qi Gao, Fabian Abel, Geert-Jan Houben, Yong Yu
26 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Interpretation
Twitter users seem to be more eager to let their posts appear in the public discussion – possibly a higher demand to profile themselves (individualism)
Individualism /Collectivism
Cultural Differences
27 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Interpretation
The finding is in line with the low commitment to an organization in China, which is one of the typical indicator for a highly collectivist culture.
Individualism /Collectivism
Cultural Differences
28 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Interpretation
The positive nature of the information on Sina Weibo might point at the long term orientation that is attributed to the Chinese culture.
Long Term Orientation
Cultural Differences
29 Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Interpretation
Twitter users may have the impression that they play an important role in the information propagation process, i.e. they act as if they are in the power of spreading information (power distance).
Power Distance
Cultural Differences