In the world of micro-blogging, Twitter is king, which explains why Twitter can be such a melting pot of thousands of short statements by the minute that it can be hard to wade through them at times.
From your sister tweeting that she is pregnant again, to a high school classmate who is divorcing from his wife, to a co-worker who just got a promotion that you were also up for, coupled with James Franco tweeting his semi-naked photos, and a fully clothed Val Kilmer tweeting his selfies, together with various other announcements on traffic ordinances in your state, dirt on your Mayor, and alarming new developments regarding climate change, Twitter has grown to become a venue for all sorts of quick bites of information.
However, going through your Twitter feed need not be so complicated, as a new study by Marc A. Smith, Lee Rainie, Ben Shneiderman, and Itai Himelboim has shown that tweets can be classified into just six different types. Titled, "Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters," the study has outlined the six conversational archetypes that go on in Twitter at any given moment in time. These are Polarized Crowd, Tight Crowd, Brand Clusters, Community Clusters, Broadcast Network, and Support Network.
Polarized Crowd refers to discussions that deal with topics that are often highly divisive and heated. The discussion often involves two big and dense groups that have very little connection with each other, and there is actually no real conversation going on despite the seeming discourse on the same topic. The tweets are mainly composed of hashtags and links to different web sources. This archetype shows that Twitter users who participate in partisan discussions rely on various sources of information available online.
Tight Crowd refers to conversations and discussions that go on among people who are highly connected to each other, with a few isolated participants. Hobby groups, people who are waiting for a major event, and people who are working together on an ongoing social project, fall under this archetype. They are evidence that social media can be a useful tool for sharing information and support for a common goal or activity.
Brand Clusters are conversations in which well-known products, services, celebrities, and other popular subjects and topics are talked about. The participants to the conversation are often disconnected and isolated, mainly because the tweets specifically just about the topic at hand, and not directed towards the participants. These discussions are significant because they help in the propagation of the brand's message, which a lot of people can relate to.
Community Clusters are multiple smaller groups that are formed around larger hubs, such as when global news stories attract reports from many other avenues that have their own set of followers. The significance of this archetype lies in the multiple conversations that are generated from the hub and spread through the smaller community clusters, which help in showing all the many different angles, opinions, and perspectives as seen from different audiences all over the world.
Broadcast Network is basically composed of just the re-tweets of what major news and media organizations originally tweet. People who participate are connected to just one hub source, and not to each other. In some cases, a smaller subgroup is formed, and the people in it, often densely connected, discuss the news with one another. This archetype is a powerful tool in setting agendas and pronouncing certain advocacies.
Support Network is composed mainly of a hub and spoke structure that is focused on an exchange between the hub and the spokes, as in many customer complaint Twitter accounts of some business entities. The spokes created by this archetype are outward, because the hub replies to the tweets. Compared with the Broadcast Network archetype, the spokes created are inward, because the re-tweets are always referring back to the original tweet. The Support Network archetype is a crucial tool in reaching out to its customers not just to send them information but to receive information as well, regarding their experience of the product or service provided.
The research has also explained that mapping Twitter out in this manner reveals a topography of the social media, "like aerial photographs of a crowd, showing the rough size and composition of a population."
"Like topographic maps of mountain ranges, network maps can also illustrate the points on the landscape that have the highest elevation. Some people occupy locations in networks that are analogous to positions of strategic importance on the physical landscape," the research further said.
The researchers used a free and open tool for analyzing social media, called NodeXL. It was created by the Social Media Research Foundation to collect data from Twitter tweets and groups that talk about a certain range of topics. The network visualization maps, together with the reports the highlighted key people, groups, and topics in the discussions, were then generated by NodeXL.
Knowing these, it would be an interesting exercise to determine what archetype our tweets fall under each time, although some Twitter conversations still rebel against whatever category we try to place them in. For instance, whenever we retweet anything about Justin Bieber, we would be hard-pressed to place it under any one of the six archetypes, since Justin Bieber is apparently boundless. But that, perhaps, is better discussed on Twitter.
