Page 26 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

26Once the clusters were identi ed, we developed a system to visualise their rise and fall over time. Sizing each tweet according to the in uence of its author (determined by follower count), we added a decay function that would allow it to dissipate over time. As such, clusters grow and shrink as their theme is taken up by additional voices.Our last challenge was to classify each tweet according to a ‘common sense understanding’ of its main role as a communicative act. Did it support, oppose, query or comment on a rumour? In addition to an algorithmic analysis by our academic partners, each tweet was independently coded by three sociology PhD students in order to enable us to check for reliability. All the results were then subject to nal review for quality assurance purposes. These categories could then be used to colour code each tweet so that readers get an overall picture of what direction the dialogue is taking.The new generation of readers wants tobe part of a conversation where stories are a dialogue between readers, journalists, activists, artists and experts, all building o one another.With this work underway, developers Martin Shuttleworth and Robin Beitra built an interactive timeline that would allow each rumour to be replayed like a video. Getting such complex graphics in place using web standards poses many problems. After seeking advice from some experienced friends, we chose an architecture that resembles what you’d nd under the hoodof an arcade game. The data for each rumour is loaded from a JSON le and placed in a structured model. Every frame, the model is queried to nd what’s in play, a custom physics engine is updated to re ect the results and a renderer draws the current state to the screen.Robin went to pains to ensure we could cater for the largest possible audience. He built alternative renderers for WebGL, HTML5 Canvasand Flash so that even older browsers would have access. He then ne-tuned the amount of information passed to the renderer so that it just draws what has changed rather than rebuilding the whole scene each frame.Martin did some great work to make an interactive playhead that lets the rest of the system what time it is. Backbone.js proved very useful for keeping everything in sync. We added a graph of tweet volume over time to help people nd the most interesting parts of the story. This is drawn in SVG or VML depending on browser capability.Finally we attempted to trace the narrative arc of each story with a series of editorially curated panels, each of which cites a key tweet (or tweets) from within the life of the rumour. This adds helpful context to what might otherwise be a somewhat abstract journey.We’re pretty happy with the result. The combination of uid movement, ebb and ow and polarised colours gives the e ect of watching biological phenomena unfold. We hope putting memes under the microscope will help untangle the forces at play in further dialogues too.’The importance of journalism in digital cultureThis project was the living example thatjust because ‘channels are open’ it doesn’t mean that the truth will arise from the dialogues among users of these new technologies employed to spread news, opinions or in most cases rumours.The importance of the role of journalism is now more evident than ever. A colleague of mine at Fusion, whom I deeply respect, has expressed some controversial opinions about the di cult of being a journalist in the age of the Internet, but I totally disagree with him.THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON CULTURAL CREATION · MARIANA MOURA SANTOSSmart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation