Actors and Themes in Twitter's #GLAG21 Backchannel: Network and Discourse Analysis of an Agricultural-Education Conference

• In Event: Social Media and Digital Technology in Professions Education

Abstract

In this paper, we explore Twitter as a backchannel for a global agricultural educators’ conference. We combined social network and open coding analyses to uncover key actors, network structure, and discourse types that emerge in Twitter conversations referencing #GLAG21. Findings show the network being sustained by a small group of key actors who engaged more in retweeting than posting original tweets and focused their discourse on promoting online presence, communicating conference logistics, and commenting on conference sessions. However, key actors’ ability to reach diverse audiences is not solely determined by number of tweets. We plan to further explore key actor profiles and their influence within the community, as well as most popular discourses taken up by the network.

Authors

• Priya Sharma, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jose Sandoval-Llanos, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Swarali Parikh, The Pennsylvania State University

• Daniel Foster, The Pennsylvania State University

• Melanie Miller-Foster, The Pennsylvania State University