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Leona Yi-Fan Su & Dietram A. Scheufele Department of Life Sciences CommunicationUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

NISE Net’s Digital Footprint

June 2015Network-wide Meeting

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Tracking NISE Net’s Online Footprint

Emerging online communication technologies63% of Americans use Internet to learn about specific scientific issuesUbiquitous use of social media (e.g., Twitter)Information dissemination and consumptionPublic engagement

Analysis of NISE Net’s online footprint

SENTIMENT ANALYSIS

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Sentiment analysis of online discourseTrack and analyze all online discourse about NISE Net activities: NanoDays and Nano mini-exhibitionCapitalizing on advantages of both human coding and computer-based analysisReliable, valid, and efficient for large-scale data

Research Area 1: NanoDays Su, L. Y.-F., Scheufele, D. A., Brossard, D., & Xenos, M. (2015, February). Engaging the public in nano: How science museums and centers are using social media. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. San Jose, CA.

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Overall volume of discussion on Twitter and Facebook

Tweets

Research Area 1: NanoDays Predicting Total Volume of Tweets about NanoDays

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Zero- Order

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Block 1: Educational attainment % residents with baccalaureate degree or more .27 .27 .15* .14 .08 Incremental R2 (%) 7.2 Block 2: State population Population .85*** .83*** .56* .26 Incremental R2 (%) 67.8 Block 3: Twitter active users by state Number of Twitter active users .85*** .29 .10 Incremental R2 (%) 0.8 Block 4: Presence of science centers and museums by state Number of participating science centers and museums by state .89*** .57*** Incremental R2 (%) 7.2*** Total R2 (%) 83.0***

* p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001

States with more participating science centers and museums have higher levels of engagement in communicating about NanoDays on Twitter

Research Area 1: NanoDays Information, Engagement, and Community Building

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Functions of science center and museums’ social media updates

Research Area 1: NanoDays Mostly One-way Communication

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Cross-year comparison of tweet functions Use of Twitter tools

Research Area 2: Nano Mini-ExhibitionExamining Real-World Impacts of NISE Net

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Using CATPAC to analyze the transcriptTie-ins with other research program(s) within NISE NetWord/concept associations in transcribed conversations among visitorsMost frequently used words in different concept spaces used as keywords for sentiment analysis

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Overall volume of discussion about nano associated with “butterfly” exhibit(KW: butterfly, wing, or blue) in social media, blogs, and online news

How Mini-Exhibit Themes Can Get Amplified by NanoDays:The “Butterfly” Exhibit as an Example …

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology and Butterfly

Slice down to a specific theme

Nano Days

A Few Concluding Thoughts

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Research Area 1Measurable impact of the NISE Net member sitesCommunication is mostly one-way and largely based on information dissemination

Research Area 2Ability to track specific exhibit themes or themes emerging from transcriptsDiscussions about NISE Net events may be overlapping or amplify each otherDigital footprints have relatively limited half-life