Visualizing Research Topics in Facebook Conversations

Abstract

In the last few years, the growth of Social Media has changed significantly the way in which information and ideas of any kind are made, spent and reported. As a result, information has gradually shifted from “official” sources (online newspapers, institutional websites, etc.) to user-generated-content (UGG). This research arises from these premises: UGGs offer an interesting opportunity for a multidisciplinary analysis. The authors investigate Facebook conversations and status from the linguistic point of view, to know possible educational implications, starting from data visualization process. Our case study are seven years of conversations of the largest and longest running Italian Facebook group named “ROARS”.

Keywords

• visual topic modeling
• social media mining
• interactive information visualization
• knowledge building
• natural language processing