Distinguished Professor to Speak at UA on Tracking Social Media

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Arthur G. Cosby, a nationally recognized social scientist, will speak about tracking and analyzing social media to mine scientific data at The University of Alabama April 22.

Cosby, the William L. Giles Distinguished Professor and director of the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University, will begin his lecture, titled “The Social Media Tracking and Analysis System: The Superstorm Sandy Beta Test,” in Smith Hall beginning at 11 a.m.

Part of the Lowder Lecture Series in the UA Culverhouse College of Commerce, Cosby’s visit is also sponsored by the UA College of Engineering and Center for Advanced Public Safety.

In the summer of 2011, a group of scientists, research associates and graduate students at the MSU Social Science Research Center began to develop a suite of software applications intended to create a capacity to track and analyze a wide array of social media platforms. The goal was to assist researchers in using social media as a source of scientific data for exploration and investigation. The result of this endeavor was the Social Media Tracking and Analysis System, or SMTAS.

The system was tested with Superstorm Sandy in fall 2012, and it was effective, collecting more than 4.5 million Tweets and an estimated 400,000 images of the storm and its aftermath. This resulted in a significant gain in understanding of the role and implication of social media in natural disaster events.

Cosby and other researchers at MSU now have an appreciation of the volume of social media communications and their resilience in the face of storm events and power failures. Researchers understand how social media was used as a recovery mechanism, especially in the formation of “organic responses” to the storm event. The software also tracked public sentiment concerning major relief agencies and political leaders in the impacted areas.

Additional analysis is addressing a myriad of other researchable questions. SMTAS is organized in a series of modules that provide unparalleled capacity for research applications with social media. Access module enables researchers to use more than 20 different social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. For example, researchers at MSU have access to the more than 400 million Tweets worldwide. The tracking/scheduling module allows researcher to track social media by word-choice and phrases, location, social media influence, complex time designs, volume of tweets and other features included in social media data. The system has the capacity for primary, secondary, panel and specialized tracking.

The Robert E. and Charlotte Lowder Endowed Executive Professor Program brings nationally prominent individuals of exemplary accomplishment to share their experience and insights with Culverhouse students. The Lowder Program is planned and organized by the Culverhouse College of Commerce’s department of alumni and corporate relations, with generous support from Robert E. and Charlotte Lowder of Montgomery, Ala.

In 1837, The University of Alabama became one of the first five universities in the nation to offer engineering classes. Today, UA’s fully accredited College of Engineering has more than 3,900 students and more than 110 faculty. In the last eight years, students in the College have been named USA Today All-USA College Academic Team members, Goldwater, Hollings, Portz, Mitchell and Truman scholars.