Tracking Comet ISON through the Twittersphere

Abstract

People are increasingly turning to the Internet and social media for science-related information and communication. Online social media systems are a convenient source of timely and rapid information, including science-related information; however it is argued that the emergence of social media systems is a fundamentally new development in science communication. A distinguishing characteristic of social media systems is their support for ‘democratic,' user-generated content, and for the public debate and contestation of scientific ideas. The emergence of the online environment as an important source of science information is still comparatively new, as is research to understand how people find and use science information in this setting. This study investigates how information about comet ISON was communicated on the Twitter social media platform. Tweet time sequence visualization and network visualization were found to offer complementary insights into the Twitter data, and to offer a productive methodological approach for future research work.