Tools | Welcome to the VOSON Lab!

Chapter in Web As History book

Ann Evans and Rob Ackland have contributed a chapter "Using the Web to Examine the Evolution of the Abortion Debate in Australia 2005-2015" in N. Brügger and R. Schroeder (eds), Web as History (London: UCL Press), published March 2017.

SocialMediaLab

SocialMediaLab is an R package that provides a suite of tools for collecting and constructing networks from social media data. Tim Graham is the lead developer. SocialMediaLab provides easy-to-use functions for collecting data across popular platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) and generating different types of networks for analysis. See here for more on SocialMediaLab, including training.

Chapter in Socialbots book

Tim Graham and Rob Ackland have contributed a chapter "Do Socialbots Dream of Popping the Filter Bubble? The Role of Socialbots in Promoting Deliberative Democracy in Social Media" in M. Bakardjieva and R. W. Gehl (eds) Socialbots and Their Friends: Digital Media and the Automation of Sociality (London: Routledge), which was published in December 2016.

Collaboration with artist Jen Fullerton - abusive language directed towards politicians on Twitter

Artist Jen Fullerton collaborated with Rob Ackland to create a unique series of paper sculptures depicting abusive language directed towards Australian politicians on Twitter. Rob provided analytics using data collected in a project where the Twitter activity of Australian politicians (and those engaging with politicians via tweets, retweets and metnions) was tracked for a year. Jen created the works as an ANU Vice-Chancellor’s College Artist Fellow, and she commented: "Access to this data has given me the opportunity to discuss the use of abusive language on social media as a new and accepted form of public discourse...Working with Dr Ackland has allowed me to further explore my interest in using sculpture to discuss the ways in which increasing levels of online interaction are changing our behaviour."