By Gilad Lotan, Erhardt Graeff, Mike Ananny, Devin Gaffney, Ian Pearce, and danah boyd

Web Ecology goes peer-review! In a new International Journal of Communication article, Web Ecologists Erhardt Graeff, Devin Gaffney, and Ian Pearce collaborated with friends of Web Ecology Gilad Lotan, Mike Ananny, and danah boyd on an analysis of Twitter data from the Arab Spring. Here is the abstract:

This article details the networked production and dissemination of news on Twitter during snapshots of the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions as seen through information flows—sets of near-duplicate tweets—across activists, bloggers, journalists, mainstream media outlets, and other engaged participants. We differentiate between these user types and analyze patterns of sourcing and routing information among them. We describe the symbiotic relationship between media outlets and individuals and the distinct roles particular user types appear to play. Using this analysis, we discuss how Twitter plays a key role in amplifying and spreading timely information across the globe.

You can download and read the full article (open access) in PDF format from the IJOC website: http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1246/613.

Lead author Gilad Lotan also produced an online data navigator to accompany the article: http://www.danah.org/projects/IJOC-ArabSpring/.