WEB Dissemination of a Story Ankica Babic University of Bergen, Norway

”To what extent is it possible to reach a world-wide audience with a message?” Investigation of the dissemination of a story through digital technologies Feasibility of Internet technologies to promote news information globally

Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country

Data and Methods YouTube footage and news media reporting on Burma VJ Web information analysis Graphical presentation of results (network evolution, information dissemination, sentiment analysis in brief)

Network Structure and Network Dynamics Properties: Scale free, Clustering, Navigation Models Small world Preferential network Dynamics Network evolution How network structure changes as the network evolves? Diffusion and cascading behavior? How do news, rumors spread over networks? Large data Phenomena not visible at smaller scales becomes visible.

Networks, Rich Data Possible to study phenomena and behaviors at large scales Rich data: Facebook (64 million users) MySpace (300 million users) YouTube (135 million users) Communication Instant Messenger (over 1 billion users) News and Social media: over 250 million blogs

Sources, Approaches, Methods

Network Structure and Network Dynamics; Blogs Properties: Scale free, Clustering, Navigation Dynamics Network evolution How network structure changes as the network evolves? Diffusion and cascading behavior? How do news, rumors spread over networks? Large data Phenomena not visible at smaller scales becomes visible. Blogs Bloggers write posts/ articles and refer to other posts and the information propagates Data: 10.5 million posts, 16 million links

Dissemination of information 80k – 100k hits 60k – 80k hits 40k – 60k hits 20k – 40k hits 10k – 20k hits 0 – 10k hits 9

Blogosphere: Initial publications according to the Wikipedia GERMANY (1) DENMARK (2) INDIA (5) NORWAY (1) SWEDEN (3) UK (68) IRELAND (1) JAPAN (2) NETHERLAND (1) PHILIPPINES (5) CANADA (1) USA (36) QATAR (2) INDONESIA (1) MYANMAR (32) N. ZEALAND (1) SWITZERLAND (6) THAILAND (4) AUSTRALIA (10) 10

Burma VJ Film Festival Awards STOCKHOLM LEIPZIG Burma VJ Film Festival Awards GDANSK BRATISLAVA COPENHAGEN PRAGUE HELSINKI WARSAW MUNICH BUDAPEST BERLIN TORINO RIGA VIENNA NUREMBERG VILNIUS MOSCOW DRESDEN GOTHENBURG REYKJAVIK KIEV AMSTERDAM GRIMSTAD GENEVE UTAH THESSALONIKI TORONTO GALWAY LONDON ISTANBUL TELLURIDE PARIS COLOGNE OURENSE MONTE-CARLO BEIJING MILANO NEW YORK SAN FRANCISCO JEONJU BARCELONA TOKYO TAMPA SANTA BARBARA TAIPEI LJUBLJANA HONG KONG ZAGREB AUSTIN HAVANA FERRARA JAKARTA MUMBAI BOULDER NOVI SAD ABU DHABI BOGOTA AUCKLAND BELGRADE BAHRAIN MEXICO CITY SKOPJE DAMASKUS SAO PAULO ATHENS JERUSALEM QUITO LA PAZ SINGAPORE GABORONE ANKARA CAPE TOWN BANGKOK SYDNEY MELBOURNE WELLINGTON 11

Sentiment analysis: trends in brief Network activity period 18.04.2007 – 08.10.2010 Activity intervals 2 - 41 months Hits 2.309 – 181.381

Results Graphical presentation of world wide distribution of Burma VJ news and cascading stories in blogs Political discussions deeply focused on Burma VJ Participants tend to remain anonymous Message trends evolving over time: Engagement and sympathy Criticism and disapproval of the local authorities Criticism of Western world governments