Making the invisible visible: visualizing the network structure of Twitter relationships using Social Network Analysis

Abstract

We live in a dense social network of interactions that connect us to people, information, events and places facilitating or constraining the flow of information, ideas, perceptions, etc., into an instant and massive network communication system. We create cognitive artefacts that integrate data visualization and cognitive processes in order to increase our ability to understand the complexity of the external world, made even more complex with the Internet and rise of social media. In this paper, we combine Twitter , as a type of fieldwork site, and Social Networks Analysis (SNA), as both an analytic framework and set of methods, to capture, analyze, and visualize empirical data, both statically (figure representing point in time) and dynamically (video reflecting longitudinal data). We present Flocker, a tool designed for real-time visualization and representation of network activity using Twitter as an illustrative case.