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Conversational tagging in twitter

Published: 13 June 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Users on Twitter, a microblogging service, started the phenomenon of adding tags to their messages sometime around February 2008. These tags are distinct from those in other Web 2.0 systems because users are less likely to index messages for later retrieval. We compare tagging patterns in Twitter with those in Delicious to show that tagging behavior in Twitter is different because of its conversational, rather than organizational nature. We use a mixed method of statistical analysis and an interpretive approach to study the phenomenon. We find that tagging in Twitter is more about filtering and directing content so that it appears in certain streams. The most illustrative example of how tagging in Twitter differs is the phenomenon of the Twitter micro-meme: emergent topics for which a tag is created, used widely for a few days, then disappears. We describe the micro-meme phenomenon and discuss the importance of this new tagging practice for the larger real-time search context.

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James H. Bradford

Social media is undoubtedly an important new cultural phenomenon, yet the following question remains: Will it become a vital part of our social infrastructure, or is it just a passing fad__?__ Much work is being done to analyze and comprehend the dynamics of social media. This paper examines the tagging aspect of massively multi-party conversations that arise spontaneously in Twitter. In this context, tagging is the assignment of arbitrary labels to Twitter postings (tweets). Other users embed these tags in their own tweets through an informal cooperative social process that helps identify unique conversations. These conversations may involve thousands or even hundreds of thousands of individuals over a period of days or weeks. The authors argue that conversational tagging's unique statistical properties distinguish it from traditional archival tagging. The new technique makes it possible to identify and study conversations that arise in the social environment defined by Twitter. This research will be of interest to computational linguists, ethnographers, social psychologists, cultural anthropologists, and others who study social media. Online Computing Reviews Service

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cover image ACM Conferences
HT '10: Proceedings of the 21st ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia
June 2010
328 pages
ISBN:9781450300414
DOI:10.1145/1810617
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 13 June 2010

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Author Tags

  1. memes
  2. tagging
  3. trends
  4. twitter

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HT '10
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HT '10: 21st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia
June 13 - 16, 2010
Ontario, Toronto, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 378 of 1,158 submissions, 33%

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Reshaping Epistemic Identity on X/Twitter: A Spanish-English ContrastEvaluating Identities Online10.1007/978-3-031-62320-2_3(53-90)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
  • (2023)A survey of machine learning based techniques for hate speech detection on TwitterCaderno Pedagógico10.54033/cadpedv20n8-03020:8(3605-3624)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
  • (2023)#NotDying4Wallstreet: A Discourse Analysis on Health vs. Economy during COVID-19Societies10.3390/soc1302002213:2(22)Online publication date: 20-Jan-2023
  • (2023)Building Political Hashtag Communities: A Multiplex Network Analysis of U.S. Senators on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm ElectionsComputation10.3390/computation1112023811:12(238)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
  • (2023)Polarizing publics in Twitter through organic targeting tactics of political incivilityFrontiers in Political Science10.3389/fpos.2023.11109535Online publication date: 15-Mar-2023
  • (2023)Theorie des Hashtags. Zwischen politischem Aktivismus und MarketingEntgrenzte Öffentlichkeit10.14361/9783839463352-002(27-44)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Unveiling the formation of conspiracy theory on social media: A discourse analysisJournal of Information Technology10.1177/0268396223117592339:3(392-416)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2023
  • (2023)Local Television News on Instagram: Exploring the Effects of News Values and Post Features on Audience EngagementInternational Journal on Media Management10.1080/14241277.2023.220452825:1-2(1-22)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2023
  • (2023)When will government information be attractive? The effect of information features on the diffusion of government microblogsTelematics and Informatics10.1016/j.tele.2023.10193878(101938)Online publication date: Mar-2023
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