Presentation - CyberEmotions

Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS) Information Studies

detecting and analysing emotion in social network sites MySpace comments case study

Mike Thelwall Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group University of Wolverhampton, UK

research motivation sentiment is a frequently overlooked key factor in communication and relationships needs to be investigated to understand the role of sentiment in new online environments  



identify suicide “at risk” discover emotional factors necessary for sustained online environments modify bots to detect and react appropriately to emotional communication

talk structure part 1: background information about MySpace comment communication part 2: automatically detecting sentiment in MySpace comments

MySpace comments are public or semi-public short messages exchanged by Friends

but what is their purpose and what do they look like?

comments Displayed in public on home page – public personal messages

purpose 1: gossip (53% of dialogs) – examples of gossip comments I moved to Houston, Tx. I come home at the beginning of July well i just diyed my hair nearly black!! i regret not going to UMSX bc MZU is so much harder i sooo messed up :(( for a white guy tim knows a lot of rap song Tina talks about you all the time. Nigel said you were feeling bad

purpose 2: coordination of offline activities (18% of dialogs) CALL ME WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE hey text me sometime.. [number] i hope to see you toniiite