Analyzing customer sentiments in microblogs – A topic-model-based approach for Twitter datasets

In the Social Commerce customers evolve to an important information source for companies. The customers use communication platforms of the Web 2.0, for example Twitter, in order to express their opinions about products or discuss their experiences with them. These opinions can be very important for the development of products or the product range of a company. Our approach enables a company viewing opinions about its products which are published using the microblogging service Twitter. A first step in our research progress is detecting topics in a specific context. In a further step the entries corresponding to these topics has to be analyzed for opinions. For topic detection we use topic modeling with the Latent Dirichlet Allocation. In our paper we found event-based topics in the context of Sony’s 3D TV sets. In future work we are able to implement Opinion Mining algorithms to determine sentiments in the entries corresponding to the detected topics

Exploring the Relationship between Influencers’ Sentiment and Cryptocurrency Fluctuation through Microblogs

Scholars and practitioners increasingly recognize the importance of microblogs in capturing eWord of Mouth (eWoM) and their predictive power for cryptocurrency markets. This research in progress paper examines the extent to which microblog messages are related to bitcoin fluctuation. Building on information systems and finance literature, we examine the interactions between influencers’ extreme sentiment and the bitcoin fluctuation using natural language processing techniques and hypothesis testing. Our preliminary results show when influencers express extreme sentiment, in favour or against bitcoin, it is less likely that their tweets are related to future bitcoin fluctuation. However, when their extreme tweets are in-depth and unique, this negative relationship is moderated. Overall, our findings reveal that influencers’ sentiment is an important predictor in determining bitcoin fluctuation, but not all tweets are of equal impact. This study offers new insights into social media and its role in the cryptocurrency market

Towards a More Proactive Method

Drawing upon policy analysis and textual analysis of official microblogs, this paper describes how Xi’s new leadership regulates public opinion and public emotion in Chinese microblogs. The paper argues that the advent of the Xi Jinping administration demonstrates much more aggressive ideological demands. On the one hand, the new leadership has increasingly ramped up its efforts on censoring information and repressing critical public opinion. On the other hand, however, it has paid more attention to proactively guiding public opinion on the Internet. New strategies, represented by cultivating self-discipline among Internet users, repressing the insubordinate and wooing obedient public opinion leaders, establishing cooperation between official microblogs, and eliminating emotional outpourings in the microblogsphere have been used in Xi’s new ideological campaign to repress Internet rumours and sanitise critical public discourse

Microbloggers’ motivations in participatory journalism: A cross-cultural study of America and China

This phenomenological study focuses on the motivations of participatory journalists contributing on microblogs such as Twitter and Weibo. Although online user behavior and motivations have been studied before, few studies have examined motivations of participatory journalists from their own perspective. Moreover, this study is one of the few to explore participatory journalists across different cultures (U.S. and China). The author conducted a total of 13 in-depth interviews with participatory journalists on microblogs from both countries and used a qualitative analysis method to identify the themes and patterns that emerged. Motivations such as earning respect, technology early adoption, self-expression, relationship building, self-enhancement, branding and image building, and financial gain were discussed. De-motivational factors such as time constraints and self-censorship were presented. Motivational differences between the two groups of participants, including what the microblog account represents and the role of participatory journalists, were explained by cultural differences collectivism versus individualism and power distance. Limitations and future research were also discussed

The shaping of environmental information in social media : affordances and technologies of self-control

This article studies environmental information as it circulates in social media, specifically in personal blogs and microblogs. It rests on a thematic analysis of a selection of Swedish language, personal, everyday life environment blogs active during 2011 and 2012 and the social media applications connected to these blogs. Gibson’s concept of affordances and Foucault's notion of governmentality are brought together to work out how material and technological affordances of social media and the structures of governmentality work together to engender a type of information on environmentally friendly living that is rooted in the conditions of the web and in a view of society, which is structured around choice and individual responsibility. The article argues that information is woven into the texture of the social on every level, including everyday life practices, and hence social media, as tools in such practices, contribute to shaping the way in which information on environmentally friendly living is articulated, shaped and filled with meaning

Resisting the Censorship Infrastructure in China

China’s censorship infrastructure is widely recognized as sophisticated, strict, and comprehensive. We conducted a qualitative study to understand Chinese citizens’ practices to navigate the censored Chinese Internet. We found that participants’ practices were closely related to their understanding of and resistance to the censorship infrastructure. Participants switched between public and private channels based on the information they desired to seek. They communicated in ways that were considered less vulnerable to censorship examination. They broadened their information search to mitigate the impact of censored content consumption. Through these practices, participants reportedly coped with the censorship infrastructure in an effective manner. We discuss how this case of resistance to censorship in China may further our understanding of such infrastructure

Why Does China Allow Freer Social Media? Protests Versus Surveillance And Propaganda

In this paper, we document basic facts regarding public debates about controversial political issues on Chinese social media. Our documentation is based on a dataset of 13.2 billion blog posts published on Sina Weibo--the most prominent Chinese microblogging platform--during the 2009-2013 period. Our primary finding is that a shockingly large number of posts on highly sensitive topics were published and circulated on social media. For instance, we find millions of posts discussing protests, and these posts are informative in predicting the occurrence of specific events. We find an even larger number of posts with explicit corruption allegations, and that these posts predict future corruption charges of specific individuals. Our findings challenge a popular view that an authoritarian regime would relentlessly censor or even ban social media. Instead, the interaction of an authoritarian government with social media seems more complex.published_or_final_versio