1 Leona Yi-Fan Su & Dietram A. Scheufele Department of Life Sciences Communication University of Wisconsin-Madison NISE Net’s Digital Footprint June 2015 Network-wide Meeting

2 Tracking NISE Net’s Online Footprint Emerging online communication technologies  63% of Americans use Internet to learn about specific scientific issues  Ubiquitous use of social media (e.g., Twitter)  Information dissemination and consumption  Public engagement Analysis of NISE Net’s online footprint

SENTIMENT ANALYSIS 3 Sentiment analysis of online discourse  Track and analyze all online discourse about NISE Net activities: NanoDays and Nano mini-exhibition  Capitalizing on advantages of both human coding and computer-based analysis  Reliable, valid, and efficient for large-scale data

Research Area 1: NanoDays Su, L. Y.-F., Scheufele, D. A., Brossard, D., & Xenos, M. (2015, February). Engaging the public in nano: How science museums and centers are using social media. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. San Jose, CA. 4 Overall volume of discussion on Twitter and Facebook Tweets

Research Area 1: NanoDays Predicting Total Volume of Tweets about NanoDays 5 * p ≤.05; ** p ≤.01; *** p ≤.001  States with more participating science centers and museums have higher levels of engagement in communicating about NanoDays on Twitter

Research Area 1: NanoDays Information, Engagement, and Community Building 6 Functions of science center and museums’ social media updates

Research Area 1: NanoDays Mostly One-way Communication 7 Cross-year comparison of tweet functionsUse of Twitter tools

Research Area 2: Nano Mini-Exhibition Examining Real-World Impacts of NISE Net 8 Using CATPAC to analyze the transcript  Tie-ins with other research program(s) within NISE Net  Word/concept associations in transcribed conversations among visitors  Most frequently used words in different concept spaces used as keywords for sentiment analysis

9 Overall volume of discussion about nano associated with “butterfly” exhibit (KW: butterfly, wing, or blue) in social media, blogs, and online news How Mini-Exhibit Themes Can Get Amplified by NanoDays: The “Butterfly” Exhibit as an Example … Nanotechnology Nanotechnology and Butterfly Slice down to a specific theme Nano Days

A Few Concluding Thoughts 10 Research Area 1  Measurable impact of the NISE Net member sites  Communication is mostly one-way and largely based on information dissemination Research Area 2  Ability to track specific exhibit themes or themes emerging from transcripts  Discussions about NISE Net events may be overlapping or amplify each other  Digital footprints have relatively limited half-life