Archeology versus Archaeology versus #Blogarch

I’m working on a paper that maps the archaeological blogosphere. I thought this morning it might be good to take a quick detour into the Twitterverse.

Behold!

'archaeology' on twitter, april 7 2014

‘archaeology’ on twitter, april 7 2014

‘archaeology’ on twitter

Here we have every twitter username, connected by referring to each other in a tweet. There’s a seriously strong spine of tweeting, but it doesn’t make for a unified graph. The folks keeping this clump all together, measured by betweeness centrality:

pompeiiapp
arqueologiabcn
herculaneumapp
romanheritage
openaccessarch
cmount1
groovyhistorian
lornarichardson

top replied-to
hotrodngold
raymondsnoddy
colesprouse
1014retold
janell_elise
yorksarch
holleyalex
bonesbehaviours
uclu
illustreets

Top URLS:
http://bit.ly/1husSFB
http://phy.so/316076983
http://bit.ly/1sqHFu0
http://beasiswaindo.com/1796
https://www.dur.ac.uk/archaeology/conferences/current/babao2014/
http://wanderinggypsyvoyager.blogspot.com/2014/04/archaeology-two-day-search.html?spref=tw

Photographer Klaus Leidorf’s Aerial Archaeology


http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/04/did-europeans-get-fat-neandertals
http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/HadriansWall
http://ift.tt/PWRYrf

Top hashtags:
archaeology 325
Pompeii 90
fresco 90
Archaeology 77
Herculaneum 40
Israel 24
nowplaying 20
roman 18
newslocker 16
Roman 14

Archeology

Let’s look at american archeology – as signified by the dropped ‘e’.

'archeology' on twitter, april 7

‘archeology’ on twitter, april 7

An awful lot more fragmented – less popular consciousness of archaeology-as-a-community?
Top by betweeness centrality – the ones who hold this together:
illumynous
archeologynow
youtube
heritagedaily
algenpfleger
riosallier
david328124
ogurek3
gold248131
leafenthusiast

Top urls:
http://ift.tt/1hN75Lp
http://wp.me/p4jAM9-1cZ
Archeology girl

http://bit.ly/1qdaHLD
http://newszap.com
http://www.valencia953fm.com.ve
http://bit.ly/PS6hg4
http://goo.gl/fb/MfmNZ
http://goo.gl/fb/IfRnh

Top hashtags:
archeology
history
rome
ancient
easterisland
mystery
easter
slave
esoteric
egypt

Top replied-to
atheistlauren
nofaith313
faraishah
sebpatrick
swbts
thebiblestrue
animal
christofpierson
simba_83
andystacey

#Blogarch on twitter

twitter search '#blogarch' april 7 2014

twitter search ‘#blogarch’ april 7 2014

And now, the archaeologists themselves, as indicated by #blogarch

We talk to ourselves – but with the nature of the hashtag, I suppose that’s to be expected?

Top by betweeness centrality
openaccessarch
drspacejunk
bonesdonotlie
archeowebby
drkillgrove
fieldofwork
archaeo_girl
brennawalks
ejarchaeology
yagumboya

top urls
http://zoharesque.blogspot.com/2014/03/space-age-archaeology-and-future-do-i.html?spref=tw
http://bit.ly/1gBkNin

The Future of Blogging Campus Archaeology


http://wp.me/p36umf-cW
http://www.poweredbyosteons.org/2014/03/blogging-bioarchaeology-where-do-we-go.html#.Uzm7zM8kJUw.twitter
http://ow.ly/3iVK4f
http://wp.me/p3Kfwu-cb
http://bit.ly/PCdEIE
http://wp.me/p1rKjz-V2
http://diggin-it-archaeology.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-future-in-blogging-archaeology.html

Top hashtags
blogarch
BlogArch
archaeology
saa2014
SAA2014
blogging
CRMArch
newslocker
crmarch

Top replied to
electricarchaeo (yay me!)

Top mentioned:
drspacejunk
bonesdonotlie
fieldofwork
openaccessarch
archeowebby
jsatgra
cmount1
archaeo_girl
capmsu
drkillgrove

Put them altogether now…

And now, we put them altogether to get ‘archaeology’ on the twitterverse today:

'archaeology, archeology, and #blogarch' on twitter, april 7

‘archaeology, archeology, and #blogarch’ on twitter, april 7

Visually, it’s apparent that the #blogarch crew are the ones tying together the wider twitter worlds of archaeology & archeology, thought it’s still pretty fragmented. There’re 460 folks in this graph.

Top by betweeness centrality:

openaccessarch
drspacejunk
bonesdonotlie
archeowebby
drkillgrove
fieldofwork
jamvallmitjana
archaeo_girl
brennawalks
ejarchaeology

Top urls

http://zoharesque.blogspot.com/2014/03/space-age-archaeology-and-future-do-i.html?spref=tw
http://bit.ly/1gBkNin
http://www.poweredbyosteons.org/2014/03/blogging-bioarchaeology-where-do-we-go.html#.Uzm7zM8kJUw.twitter
http://campusarch.msu.edu/?p=2782
http://wp.me/p4jAM9-1cZ
http://fav.me/d7d95kp
http://wp.me/p1rKjz-V2
http://diggin-it-archaeology.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-future-in-blogging-archaeology.html
http://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/the-future-of-blogging-for-bones-dont-lie/
http://soundcloud.com/vrecordings/l-side-andrezz-archeology-v

top hashtags (not useful, given the nature of the search, right? But anyway)

blogarch
archeology
archaeology
BlogArch
history
ancient
easterisland
mystery
easter
slave

Top word pairs in those largest groups:

archeology,professor 30
started,yesterday 21
yesterday,battle 21
battle,towton 21
towton,weapon 21
weapon,tests 21
tests,forensic 21
forensic,archeology 21
museum,archeology 19
blogging,archaeology 17

second group:
blogging,archaeology 13
future,blogging 12
archaeology,go 7
archaeology,future 7
archaeology,final 6
final,review 6
review,blogarch 6
hopes,dreams 6
dreams,fears 6
fears,blogging 6

third group:
space,age 6
age,archaeology 6
archaeology,future 6
future,know 6
know,going 6
saa2014,blogarch 6
going,blogarch 5
blogarch,post 3
post,future 3
future,blogging 3

fourth group:
easterisland,ancient 10
ancient,mystery 10
mystery,easter 10
easter,slave 10
slave,history 10
history,esoteric 10
esoteric,archeology 10
archeology,egypt 10
rt,illumynous 9
illumynous,easterisland 9

fifth group:
costa,rica 8
rt,archeologynow 7
archeologynow,modern 4
modern,archeology 4
archeology,researching 4
researching,dive 4
dive,bars 4
bars,costa 4
rica,costa 4
rica,star 4

(once I saw ‘bars’, I stopped. Archaeological stereotypes, maybe).

Top mentioned in the entire graph

illumynous 9 bonesdonotlie 8
drspacejunk 8 drkillgrove 4
bonesdonotlie 8 capmsu 4
archeologynow 7 yagumboya 3
openaccessarch 7 drspacejunk 3
macbrunson 6 archeowebby 3
swbts 6 allarchaeology 3
archeowebby 6 openaccessarch 3
algenpfleger 5 cmount1 3
youtube 5 brennawalks 2

So what does this all mean? Answers on a postcard, please…

(My network files will be on figshare.com eventually).

Advertisement

Visualizing THATCamp

THATCamps are quite popular. I’m throwing one myself. But who are the people talking about them on Twitter? What does the THATCamp look like on the Twitterverse?

I used NodeXL to retrieve the data – a search for tweets, people, and the links between them. I then visualized the data in Gephi, where colour = community (per Gephi’s modularity routine) and sized the nodes (individual Twitterers) using Pagerank, on the premise that this was a directed graph and one should follow the links (although there was little difference with Betweeness Centrality. Major players are still major, either way).

I found 233 individuals, linked together by 4435 edges. Some general stats on this directed network:

Top 10 Vertices, Ranked by Betweenness Centrality Betweenness Centrality
thatcamp 10493.93299
marindacos 3381.65598
amandafrench 2530.589717
openeditionsays 2491.27153
inactinique 2183.450362
briancroxall 2093.876857
piotrr70 2014.064889
brettbobley 1798.013658
miriamkp 1693.203103
melissaterras 1596.42585

 

Top Replied-To in Entire Graph Entire Graph Count
colleengreene 4
thatcamp 3
rosemarysewart 2
normasalim 2
janaremy 2
spagnoloacht 1
chuckrybak 1
lawnsports 1
ncecire 1
academicdave 1
Top Mentioned in Entire Graph Entire Graph Count
thatcamp 25
piotrr70 25
briancroxall 17
ncecire 16
spouyllau 14
thtcmpfeminisms 10
marindacos 8
dhlib2012 8
thatcamprtp 7
goldstoneandrew 6
Top URLs in Tweet in Entire Graph Entire Graph Count
http://leo.hypotheses.org/9506 26
http://bit.ly/RyrPvA 19
http://tcp.hypotheses.org/609 19
http://tcp.hypotheses.org/programme 15
http://rtp2012.thatcamp.org/apply/ 12
http://bit.ly/w1IFmR 11
http://dhlib2012.thatcamp.org/register/ 10
http://goo.gl/qJ185 10
http://dhlib2012.thatcamp.org/ 8
http://bit.ly/RNHLKO 8
Top Hashtags in Tweet in Entire Graph Entire Graph Count
thatcamp 137
mla13 27
dh 22
tcp2012 17
thatcampsocal 12
dhlib2012 9
unconferences 7
thatcamptheory 6
digitalhumanities 6
tcny2012 6

And now the visualization. You can download the zoomable pdf here.

As I look at the modularity in this graph, at first blush, you can see quite a North America / European divide, with various satellite outposts. This could be of course because there’s a THATCamp Paris coming down the pipe (lots of French in the tweets).