twitter-thread-analysis

This repo will be used to gather and possibly also visualize data for a research paper. The paper looks into variations in user engagement between threads and singular tweets. Its aim is to highlight possible benefits of using Twitter threads for science communication.

HOW TO

• make sure Python and Git is installed
• install needed packages
  

pip install pandas
pip install pysimplegui
pip install git+https://github.com/JustAnotherArchivist/snscrape.git

• run tweet-scraper.py
  

python tweet-scraper.py

TODOs

• add Tweet / Thread / Both mechanic
• improve UX and add status messages
• expose output tweet properties in GUI
• add cancel scrape button
• compile

POSSIBLE UPDATES

• implement visualization / plots
• do something about second caveat
• change GUI theme on mac

IMPORTANT CAVEATS

1. Numbers don't always add up. E.g. Tweet Count = 100 -> 25 threads, 15 replies 55 tweets. This usually happens if not all parts of a thread are included in a given corpus size.
2. If a thread's initial tweet is a reply, this initial data point is categorized as a reply, and therefore not included in the threads output.
3. The scraper is in dire need of more testing, expect bugs and always check your output for errors (+ feel free to contact me)