Russia/Ukraine Invasion Twitter Analysis
Identify and fairly represent at least three stakeholders in a conversation (with their stake being based on their identity or opinion)
Careful analysis of the chronological developments of the conversation or some other pattern you have observed in the conversation (this pattern should be included in your topic)
Do your own primary research on Twitter
As media consumers, we tend to find websites we like with authors we agree with, and stick to those websites. While this may help us stay informed on the things that matter most to us (sports, technology, 14 pictures of kittens learning to skateboard), it can also prevent us from learning more about issues that don’t directly relate to our lives and opinions that we might not already agree with.
For this assignment, you will analyze the discussion of a topic (not necessarily a conspiracy, scam, or cult!) and its online response. Issues can range from #Never Again to #Deflate Gate to #The Bachelor. In order to capture the full range of responses and arguments, you will need to become familiar with the hashtags associated with the conversation and how to locate tweets or posts based on those particular hashtags. It might not be possible to capture every participant’s response in your paper, so you will want to find common threads to the conversation and trace the development of the conversation chronologically. You may also reference news and blog coverage of the conversation, though you will need to do your own primary research on Twitter, Reddit, or TikTok to make sure threads aren’t left out and that the conversation’s chronological development is accurately represented.
This assignment will develop your research skills in several ways, as we’ll discuss:
1. How to conduct, analyze, and incorporate primary research into a formal research paper;
2. How to follow scholarly conventions related to structure and content;
3. How to cite different types of sources than you might be familiar with, both in-text and in the Works Cited/References page;
4. How to narrow searches to fit the research question
5. How to deal with personal bias when conducting research
