Social media in the Global South: A Network Dataset of the Malian Twittersphere

With the expansion of mobile communications infrastructure, social media usage in the Global South is surging. Compared to the Global North, populations of the Global South have had less prior experience with social media from stationary computers and wired Internet. Many countries are experiencing violent conflicts that have a profound effect on their societies. As a result, social networks develop under different conditions than elsewhere, and our goal is to provide data for studying this phenomenon. In this dataset paper, we present a data collection of a national Twittersphere in a West African country of conflict. While not the largest social network in terms of users, Twitter is an important platform where people engage in public discussion. The focus is on Mali, a country beset by conflict since 2012 that has recently had a relatively precarious media ecology. The dataset consists of tweets and Twitter users in Mali and was collected in June 2022, when the Malian conflict became more violent internally both towards external and international actors. In a preliminary analysis, we assume that the conflictual context influences how people access social media and, therefore, the shape of the Twittersphere and its characteristics. The aim of this paper is to primarily invite researchers from various disciplines including complex networks and social sciences scholars to explore the data at hand further. We collected the dataset using a scraping strategy of the follower network and the identification of characteristics of a Malian Twitter user. The given snapshot of the Malian Twitter follower network contains around seven million accounts, of which 56,000 are clearly identifiable as Malian. In addition, we present the tweets. The dataset is available at: https://osf.io/mj2q/?view_only=460f5daef1024f05a0d45e082d26059f (peer review version).Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Social media in the Global South: A Network Dataset of the Malian Twittersphere

With the expansion of mobile communications infrastructure, social mediausage in the Global South is surging. Compared to the Global North, populationsof the Global South have had less prior experience with social media fromstationary computers and wired Internet. Many countries are experiencingviolent conflicts that have a profound effect on their societies. As a result,social networks develop under different conditions than elsewhere, and our goalis to provide data for studying this phenomenon. In this dataset paper, wepresent a data collection of a national Twittersphere in a West African countryof conflict. While not the largest social network in terms of users, Twitter isan important platform where people engage in public discussion. The focus is onMali, a country beset by conflict since 2012 that has recently had a relativelyprecarious media ecology. The dataset consists of tweets and Twitter users inMali and was collected in June 2022, when the Malian conflict became moreviolent internally both towards external and international actors. In apreliminary analysis, we assume that the conflictual context influences howpeople access social media and, therefore, the shape of the Twittersphere andits characteristics. The aim of this paper is to primarily invite researchersfrom various disciplines including complex networks and social sciencesscholars to explore the data at hand further. We collected the dataset using ascraping strategy of the follower network and the identification ofcharacteristics of a Malian Twitter user. The given snapshot of the MalianTwitter follower network contains around seven million accounts, of which56,000 are clearly identifiable as Malian. In addition, we present the tweets.The dataset is available at: https://osf.io/mj2qt/Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Social media in the Global South: A Network Dataset of the Malian Twittersphere

With the expansion of mobile communications infrastructure, social media usage in the Global South is surging. Compared to the Global North, populations of the Global South have had less prior experience with social media from stationary computers and wired Internet. Many countries are experiencing violent conflicts that have a profound effect on their societies. As a result, social networks develop under different conditions than elsewhere, and our goal is to provide data for studying this phenomenon. In this dataset paper, we present a data collection of a national Twittersphere in a West African country of conflict. While not the largest social network in terms of users, Twitter is an important platform where people engage in public discussion. The focus is on Mali, a country beset by conflict since 2012 that has recently had a relatively precarious media ecology. The dataset consists of tweets and Twitter users in Mali and was collected in June 2022, when the Malian conflict became more violent internally both towards external and international actors. In a preliminary analysis, we assume that the conflictual context influences how people access social media and, therefore, the shape of the Twittersphere and its characteristics. The aim of this paper is to primarily invite researchers from various disciplines including complex networks and social sciences scholars to explore the data at hand further. We collected the dataset using a scraping strategy of the follower network and the identification of characteristics of a Malian Twitter user. The given snapshot of the Malian Twitter follower network contains around seven million accounts, of which 56,000 are clearly identifiable as Malian. In addition, we present the tweets. The dataset is available at: https://osf.io/mj2qt