Beating the news using social media: the case study of American Idol
Beating the news using social media: the case study of American Idol
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DOI：
10.1140/epjds8
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发表时间：
2012-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Vespignani, Alessandro
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ciulla, Fabio;Mocanu, Delia;Vespignani, Alessandro
我们提出了一个贡献的辩论社会事件的可预测性使用大数据分析。我们关注的是《美国偶像》电视节目中的淘汰赛，这是一个定义明确的选举现象的例子，每周在美国都会吸引数百万张选票。这个事件可以被认为是在一个简化的环境中评估Twitter信号的预测能力的基本测试。我们提供的证据表明，Twitter的活动在电视节目播出和投票期间定义的时间跨度与参赛者的排名，并允许预测投票结果。Twitter上的数据从节目和投票期间的赛季决赛已经分析，试图在官方结果播出之前的赢家预测。我们还表明，包含地理位置信息的推文的比例，使我们能够映射每个参赛者的粉丝群，无论是在美国国内还是国外，显示出强烈的区域极化发生。地理定位数据对于正确预测节目的最终结果至关重要，指出了考虑聚合Twitter信号之外的信息的重要性。虽然《美国偶像》投票只是复杂社会现象（如政治选举）的最小化和简化版本，但这项工作表明，在线系统中可用的信息量允许真实的时间收集量化指标，这些指标可能能够预测未来的舆论形成事件。
We present a contribution to the debate on the predictability of social events using big data analytics. We focus on the elimination of contestants in the American Idol TV shows as an example of a well defined electoral phenomenon that each week draws millions of votes in the USA. This event can be considered as basic test in a simplified environment to assess the predictive power of Twitter signals. We provide evidence that Twitter activity during the time span defined by the TV show airing and the voting period following it correlates with the contestants ranking and allows the anticipation of the voting outcome. Twitter data from the show and the voting period of the season finale have been analyzed to attempt the winner prediction ahead of the airing of the official result. We also show that the fraction of tweets that contain geolocation information allows us to map the fanbase of each contestant, both within the US and abroad, showing that strong regional polarizations occur. The geolocalized data are crucial for the correct prediction of the final outcome of the show, pointing out the importance of considering information beyond the aggregated Twitter signal. Although American Idol voting is just a minimal and simplified version of complex societal phenomena such as political elections, this work shows that the volume of information available in online systems permits the real time gathering of quantitative indicators that may be able to anticipate the future unfolding of opinion formation events.