Thursday
Oct082009
Green Tweets: Mapping Iran's Movement via Twitter
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 11:17
The Latest from Iran (8 October): Will There Be a Fight?
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Our colleague Ali Fisher, who writes the excellent blog Wandren PD on public diplomacy and new media, has unveiled the first results from his study of the interaction of Twitter users with post-election protest in Iran. Writing for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, he has mapped the conversation around the tags #GR88, #FreeIran, #Neda, and #Sohrab as well as the tag #helpiranelection (which I did not know about and was apparently created by a software developer in Israel).
As promising as this study is, the potential for it is even greater. As Fisher notes, "[The tag] #IranElection had so much data that a user would have had to scan 1,000 tweets every hour to keep up."
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
Our colleague Ali Fisher, who writes the excellent blog Wandren PD on public diplomacy and new media, has unveiled the first results from his study of the interaction of Twitter users with post-election protest in Iran. Writing for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, he has mapped the conversation around the tags #GR88, #FreeIran, #Neda, and #Sohrab as well as the tag #helpiranelection (which I did not know about and was apparently created by a software developer in Israel).As promising as this study is, the potential for it is even greater. As Fisher notes, "[The tag] #IranElection had so much data that a user would have had to scan 1,000 tweets every hour to keep up."
tagged Ali Fisher, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Twitter, Wandren PD in Middle East & Iran
Ali Fisher, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Twitter, Wandren PD in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (4)
#helpiranelection: there are no updates on this hashtag.
Topastro,
I'll check with Ali Fisher on his approach. I was not aware of this tag, which I think may have disappeared early in the post-election crisis. The website www.helpiranelection.com still exists; its main effects was to encourage Twitter users to put a Green overlay on their avatars.
My personal experience is that the linkages of Twitter activists built up around #IranElection and other tags. Personally, I started with #IranElection and #gr88 on all EA's Twitter postings. Later, it was #IranElection and #neda and, for a brief period, #IranElection and #sohrab. Now, all EA Twitter postings go out under #IranElection and #Iran.
S.
We should also bear in mind that Twitter's search function can be pretty unreliable. Last time I used it, it only found tweets from the past seven days.
#helpiranelection, As Scott says this tag was popular (outside the region) for a short time after the election.
You can't find updates for this #tag from June / July on Twitter now (or any now apart from yours and Scott's) because Twitter emphasises real-time search rather than archiving and providing long term searchability - For example Twitter "currently only allow you to see (your) 3200 most recent tweets"
Searches are also rate limited: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Rate-limiting?SearchFor=search+rate&sp=1
The result is a number of apps or plugins have been built in all sorts of forms allowing you to archive tweets e.g. TweetDumpr or www.evernote.com
So if you haven't archived it and it has been inactive for a while there wouldn't be anything there when you search for the #tag...