UF Atlas Lab

When we talk about successes in the Atlas Lab, we usually do so by sharing images of the lab full of students or fancy charts and infographics produced by our interns, but today we want to highlight less visible ways that social media listening can inform projects and storytelling. Diego Perdomo is our resident student reporter this semester, and when he's not creating content for the Atlas Lab, he's also working with WUFT News's Fresh Take Florida program. Last week he published this story, in which he used the Talkwalker social listening platform to discover sources who were talking about voting issues online: https://lnkd.in/egm3qDMX He followed up with some of them for interviews, which then appeared in the story. That's some innovative work! #SocialMediaListening #journalism

We had a great time hosting an impromptu watch party cheering on Rob Ferl during his historic flight on board the Blue Origin New Shepard 26 mission. Our Talkwalker monitors recorded 1,400 posts about the launch, generating 5,100 engagements with a potential reach of 1.2 billion impressions online and over social media during the last 24 hours. That's a truly global phenomenon! #NS26 #GoGators #GatorsInSpace

The Atlas Lab supports all kinds of academic work through social media listening and analytics. Roxane Coche and Nathan Carpenter, PhD used Quid to examine the 2024 Paris Olympics and shared their insights with the Center for Sports Communication & Media.

Yesterday marked the end of CrowdTangle, the tool that allowed researchers to access and analyze public Facebook and Instagram data at scale. This article discusses the implications of this loss, not just for academia but also for the world. https://lnkd.in/dZrHE_4M

We're excited to announce that from July 1 to July 12, 2024, the Atlas Lab will be hosting a Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICCS) in person at the University of Florida. The Summer Institute aims to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and beginning faculty interested in computational social science. The Summer Institute is for both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived). The SICSS-Florida focuses on social media data, text analysis, data wrangling, networks, and ethics. Learn more about SICCS Florida here: https://lnkd.in/epaESzfh Apply here by May 30: https://lnkd.in/e9Uu-BKG The instructional program will involve lectures, group problem sets, and participant-led research projects. There will also be outside speakers who conduct computational social science research in a variety of settings, such as academia, industry, and government. Topics covered include text as data, website scraping, digital field experiments, machine learning, and ethics. There will be ample opportunities for students to discuss their ideas and research with the organizers, other participants, and visiting speakers. Because we are committed to open and reproducible research, all materials created by faculty and students for the Summer Institute will be released open source. Participation is restricted to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and early-career faculty. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and fields of study, especially applicants from groups currently under-represented in computational social science. About 20 participants will be invited, and participants are expected to attend and fully participate in the two-week program. Application materials are due May 30, 2024. Inquiries may be sent to uf@sicss.net or jieun.shin@ufl.edu

The Atlas Lab is proud to have provided social media listening and analysis that went into a major report for the Council on Foundations. Read more at the link below: https://lnkd.in/dGw2rDAA

✨ Meet Zoe Punjwani! Zoe is a sophomore majoring in media production, management and technology. She is a part of the Social Media Reporting team. She joined the Atlas Lab to learn more about social media listening. Zoe is excited to apply the analytical skills she learns at the lab to succeed in the marketing industry. She also enjoys having creative freedom to analyze and report on some of her favorite topics, like music and entertainment.  Connect with her at Zoe Punjwani. 

✨ Meet Nate Waters! Nate is a senior majoring in media production, management and technology. He is a part of the Social Media Reporting team. He joined the Atlas Lab because he is very passionate about social media and wants to broaden his skills in all the different aspects of social media, especially analytics.  Connect with him at Nate Waters.

The Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University put together an excellent overview of the new Meta Content Library and API, which will replace CrowdTangle as the primary tool for researching Facebook and Instagram. They clearly describe the affordances and limitations of these new tools that will only be available to researchers in academic and nonprofit institutions.

✨ Meet Krish Saxena! Krish is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in public relations. He is part of the Promotions/ Development & Social Media Reporting team divisions. After taking Social Media Listening and Analytics, he joined the Atlas Lab student team to learn more about the connection between data analysis and social media. Krish is beyond excited to use his creative skills to formulate his own analysis work and gain experience in this ever-changing field.    Connect with him at Krish Saxena.