DATA SCRAPING AND VISUALISATION
NETLYTIC
DATA COLLECTION
By using the data collection tool Netlytic, we could to collect an extensive amount of online data within a specified period of time. However, due to the time limitations of our project, data was only collected every 15 minutes for seven days in total. We chose specific social networks to explore the discussions, themes and social media connections among individuals within online. In our case, it was Twitter, related directly towards our research question, and YouTube since we wanted to analyse comments on Emma Watson UN speech and MTV Award speech for deeper insights. Those videos have also been tweeted about and shared on Twitter. A clear disadvantage of the analysis tool is that it does not allow to look for hashtags and keywords in a distinct location (Sloan & Quan-Haase, 2017). Therefore, the results are only applicable for the network of hashtags and keywords, but not for the British population – this is also how the tool could be improved.
In the social network, Twitter the keywords "Feminist Emma Watson", "Emma Watson Gender Equality", "Emma Watson" and the hashtag "#HeForShe" were used to gain information about the networks surrounding those topics. The data sets were based on hashtags and conversations on Twitter. Regarding YouTube, we connected the links of the videos of Emma Watson accepting her “genderless” MTV award for best actor and holding her UN speech for gender equality to Netlytic.
Regarding the number of reports, Netlytic only allows 10.000 per keyword or hashtag (Sloan & Quan-Haase, 2017). For us, this was not much of a problem, since most of our chosen keywords and hashtags were very specific to get results that would answer our research question and sub-questions. Therefore, the number of reports was often only between 300 to 6.000.
KEYWORDS AND HASHTAG SELECTION
Generally, the selection of keywords and hashtags proved to be difficult since the topics of Emma Watson regarding her expressions on feminism is very specific. However, the keywords and hashtags had to be broad enough to create a data flow that was large enough to be analysed and ultimately answer our research questions. Therefore, some of the keywords and hashtags are more general, which might impact the accuracy of some results.
'Feminist Emma Watson'
To get a basic impression on the responses regarding Emma Watson expressing herself as a feminist on Twitter, we decided to use the keyword Feminist Emma Watson. By using a keyword instead of a hashtag, Netlytic filters tweets addressed at her profile (@emmawatson), but also tweets simply containing her name and the word 'feminist'. The content on those posts features a variety of negative and positive comments in which people evaluate her feminist actions. Other tweets spread information on her participations or state inspiring quotes. The keywords are helpful in providing answers for the research since they state and represent the key topics of our research.
In the dataset of the search words “Feminist Emma Watson” had 1528 records. The word cloud regarding those keywords can be found in Appendix II. The responses show mixed feelings about Emma Watson’s role as a feminist, such as criticism over her role in Beauty and the Beast on how she was “kidnapped” and “abused” by the 'Beast' role. Other feelings standing out are “stupid” and “hell”, but there are also positive feelings such as “merit”. Overall, this dataset shows negative criticism as a response to Emma Watson’s contradictory actions between being a feminist and her submissive role in Beauty and the Beast.
'Emma Watson Gender Equality'
The keyword Emma Watson Gender Equality is used as a variation to the first keyword. It has the purpose to provide information on responses the Twitter community has on Emma Watson and her fight for gender equality as a feminist. The content of the tweets using this keyword(s) is often based on Emma Watson's UN speech HeForShe in 2014, in which she addressed gender equality and spoke out as a feminist for the very first time. Though the speech was in 2014, the topic is still widely discussed on Twitter and therefore shows evidence on reactions towards Watson's feminist engagement.
There were 191 records in the “Emma Watson Gender Equality” dataset. The results show discussions over the MTV awards speech held by Emma on the 7th of May. Additionally, it shows positive responses and feelings such as the use of the words “inspiring” and “beautiful” to both describe the speech and Emma Watson herself. Furthermore, Marie Claire is mentioned, a website focused on women issues, careers and fashion. Seventeen is another magazine which targets young women in topics such as celebrities, fashion and beauty. Together, these two magazines act as influencers of Emma Watson’s activities as a feminist. The word cloud created in Netlytic can be found in Appendix III.
#HeForShe
The hashtag #HeForShe has estimated average of 850 hits on Twitter per day and is frequently used in discussions regarding not only Emma Watson’s UN Speech, but also feminism and gender equality in general. The content of tweets using this hashtag ranges from people showing their participation in the HeForShe campaign towards compliments on Emma Watson’s commitment as feminist and UN ambassador. #HeForShe was chosen because it can deliver results of online responses regarding Emma Watson’s equality speech at the UN, but also her general involvement in the feminist movement.
The #HeforShe dataset collected over 8,465 records. The responses and feelings from the dataset are mostly positive as seen in the word cloud, Appendix IV. There is an overall feeling of agreement as well as a positive correlation to Watson’s part in the HeForShe movement. ATTN, a news website, as well as @nevsschulman, a writer for ATTN, appear as a gateway to information on the campaign. Furthermore, there is activity surrounding @un_women and @chastecharity (a @un_women representative) about the initiative. Concluding, the responses on this hashtag are mainly supportive of the HeforShe movement with emphasis on commitment to act on it.
'Emma Watson'
The last keyword we chose was Emma Watson, because it represents all activity surrounding her profile and tweets as well as responses to her tweets. The content related to the keyword is very broad and provides a general overview of emotions and responses regarding the feminist celebrity. Regarding our research, the keyword will help examining the general vibes towards the topic of Emma Watson and also see who the main influencers connected to her are. Once we know how she is perceived by the network community we can further compare whether Emma Watson is perceived more negatively or positively when brought in relation to feminism than when just perceived as a celebrity.
There were over 10.000 records on the “Emma Watson” keyword dataset. Amongst the responses, several events in Emma Watson’s career are involved. The MTV Awards is the biggest and the most recent one; the responses surround about her winning speech for the gender neutral award. Other mentions are her role as Belle in Beauty and the Beast and her iconic role as Hermione in the Harry Potter series. Additionally, there seems to be a lot of mentions about her photo shoot for Vanity Fair and her recent allegedly leaked nudes. The feelings on the dataset are primarily positive, such as “beautiful” and translating from Spanish, “diversity”, “emotional” and the “best", as seen in the word cloud, Appendix V.
Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014
Furthermore, we decided to track the comments on the official UN YouTube Video of Emma Watson's speech at the HeForShe Campaign, to observe which kind of responses and emotions the video provoked. The video has been watched over 2.000.000 times and revived 40.004 likes and 2.859 dislikes. The comments below the video are not only positive but also featuring some harsh feedback (United Nations, 2014). The data outcomes of this analysis are going to provide us with valuable information on not only the research question (responses on Watson's feminist expression in her speech) and also on the biggest influencers on YouTube.
There was a total of 9.747 records in the comment section of the YouTube video of Watson's speech for the launch of the HeforShe campaign. The comments are filled with back and forth discussions of what feminism is/should be and issues that should be addressed. The feelings from this dataset, Appendix VII, are very dispersed as some mention “good”, “hate”, ”wrong” but also “agree”. Some of the issues referred to how people regard rape differently if the victim is male or female. Also, the equal payment issue is brought up as women are still paid less than men. In conclusion, the findings indicate mixed responses about the HeforShe campaign, feminism in general, and Emma Watson’s part in it.
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Emma Watson at the MTV Movie & TV Awards 2017
The second Youtube video which has been watched over 330.000 times and in which Emma Watson accepts Best Actor in a Movie is useful to analyse through Netlytic since it targets the issue of gender equality. Receiving the award for her role as Belle in "Beauty and the Beast", she talks about this acting award being the first one in history to be genderless. In her inspiring speech, Watson expresses how thankful she is to have played the role of Belle – a girl who did not listen when told that "the world was smaller than the way that she saw it with fewer opportunities for her" (MTV, 2017). Accordingly, the comments are revealing the responses and reactions of viewers on her acceptance speech that targets feminists issues, thus are relevant towards answering the research question.
In the Youtube video “Emma Watson accepts Best Actor in a movie” there were 446 records. The overall discussion focus on applauding Emma Watson’s work as an actress but also as a person. The responses are mainly positive (“good”, “great”) in regards to her speech and herself, as she was referred to 15 times as a “queen”. Appendix VI offers a broader view on the word cloud.
CONNECTION TO RESEARCH QUESTION
By gathering the online data in Netlytic and getting a broad view on the networks as well as shared content, we were able to collect impressions in hashtags and words used in Youtube comments and tweets, providing first answers to our first sub-question (What kind of comments and hashtags did Emma receive as a response to these events?). Additionally, the output analysis in forms such as word clouds provided us with answers to our second sub-questions (What are the emotions related to the response?). As a result, Netlytic can help us gives answers on what responses celebrity feminists Emma Watson receives on her expression on feminism on Twitter and Youtube in the UK – our main question.
GEPHI
Gephi is a program that helps analyse and visualise data by creating a clear network (About, n.d.). The software tool works with nodes and ties, which portrays accounts and their connections. The keywords used on Twitter are "HeForShe" and "Emma Watson Feminist". The other graphs represent the data retrieved on the YouTube videos "Emma Watson Accepts Best Actor in a Movie | MTV Movie & TV Awards" and "Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014 - Official UN Video". With the use of Gephi a network is visualised, with shows people who discuss the video or content relating to the keywords.
Generally, the colours green and pink are used for the visualisation and other bright colours are only used in case there is a need for more clarity and contrast. The graphs all have the design of ForceAtlas 2 and do not contain any overlap. Labels are used in the graphs when it is of value. The minimum modularity class size used is 1 and the maximum size used is 100.
"Emma Watson" on Twitter
slight zoom in all clusters of "Emma Watson" on Twitter
The graph above shows people that are discussing Emma Watson on Twitter and with who they are discussing. Since the tag we are researching is a person, most of the people mention her account @Emmawatson to discuss her. The discussion towards her is visualised by the dark green larger circle in the middle of the network. The black arrow pointed at it shows that most content is discussed towards her account. There are some accounts who discuss respectively more about her than other accounts, this is visualised by the black arrows that come out of these circles. However there is no other account that receives or sends more information about Emma Watson then the account of Emma Watson herself. Around the connected network there are some cluster that are not connected to the big network.
"Emma Watson Feminist" on Twitter
zoom in the biggest clusters of "Emma Watson Feminist" on Twitter
During the seven-day timeframe in which data was scraped from Twitter on the combination of keywords ‘’Feminist Emma Watson’’, a few discussions arose in which a number of active Twitter users participated. In the above-pictured graph, it is visible how there were two main users who drew attention, next to Emma Watson herself. The Twitter user that triggered the biggest discussion was @serious_cereal. This Twitter profile that it belongs to a German young woman named Rachel Stapel. She publicly draws attention to topics such as feminism and LGBT equality on her Twitter timeline. The discussion she arose on Emma Watson’s feminism was centred around her defending Watson from being a feminist rather than a ‘feminazi’. The difference between the two lies in every political/societal group/movement having a number of fanatics who are undereducated on the real intention and with that create a distorted, negative public image on the matter. In the case of feminism, these undereducated fanatics are called feminazi’s (Flummer, 2017). Stapel received responses from both people who stood with and against Emma Watson as a feminist. Stapel’s final tweet in the debate in which she makes a stance for Watson being a brave role model was retweeted and favourited numerous times.
The second biggest influencer in this graph is @carstairstydia. Little is known on her demographics, only that she is a female and lives in a Spanish-speaking country. She has 27,5K followers and she tweets mostly on topics as feminism and social justice. Within the seven-day timeframe in which data was scraped, she started a discussion on whether Emma Watson was a good role model/example since she is a white, British woman. Though this has been argued earlier, @carstairstydia is pro-Watson in this debate. She criticises other women on having a negative attitude towards Watson, since she fights for equal rights for all women.
@emmawatson is depicted in this graph also, however, she has a medium-sized node. This is because she did not spark a discussion on feminism herself, though did receive feminist-themed comments on other tweets she posted, which Netlytic scraped as ‘’feminist-themed’’.
#HeForShe on Twitter
all clusters of #HeForShe on Twitter
Overall, the major continuous influencers in this data set are the collective accounts of HeforShe, such as @HeforShe, @HeforSheNgr (from Nigeria) and @HeforSheLAC (Latin America and Caribbean) represented by the pink cluster. Within the responses are several young women’s accounts who appreciate and support the existence of the movement and Emma Watson’s involvement in it. Secondly, @UN_Women and @chastecharity found in the centre of the dark grey cluster are also playing an important role in creating awareness and targeting young women.
Besides, there are discussions, which have provided a momentary attention to the HeforShe movement. In the green cluster, there is @enriqueochoar, a Mexican politician leading the discussion about changing policies regarding the number of women in Mexican politics. Additionally, in the blue cluster, centred around @attn, @lauraperlongo and @nevschulman, an awareness video made for the ATTN news website, which asks for more female leaders, is discussed. The video targets recent parents and urges to let their kids play outside regardless of gender. 16% of American parents are less likely to take girls outside to play. Accordingly, girls are less likely to learn risk management and develop self-confidence. Studies have proven that outdoor play brings challenges and risks to children in order to enhance their physical, intellectual and social development (Little & Wyver, 2008).
"Emma Watson at the MTV Movie & TV Awards 2017" on YouTube
all cluster of "Emma Watson at the MTV Movie & TV Awards 2017" on YouTube
Data scraped on YouTube results in somewhat different graphs than graphs that are a result of Twitter-based data scraping. The graph clearly shows how the ‘top commenters’ gathered the most content. The biggest graph influencer is a male American called Gregory Gnoffo. He commented: "Don't you just want her to win an Academy Award one day?"’ (YouTube, 2017), and with that gathered 631 likes and 68 comments. Despite Gnoffo’s comment being categorised as a positive remark, the discussion in the comments can be categorised as negative, as Watson’s performance as an actress is criticised. In comparison, assuming everyone who liked Gnoffo’s comment as a supporter of the statement, the amount of people being supportive towards her versus people criticising her. Another top commenter is Julio Chino Martinez. He is supportive of Watson’s ideas and is trying to explain his personal appreciation towards genderless awards. In the comments, Watson is called a structural winner who only won to save MTV’s figurative face in regards to social justice and feminism. In total, the YouTube clip has 881 comments, comments on comments included. The majority of these comments are positive, as can be seen in the word cloud.
"Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014 - Official UN Video" on YouTube
zoom in on some clusters of "Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014" on YouTube
The graph indicates the top six people who were the most engaging in the comment section of the YouTube video “ Emma Watson at the HeForShe Campaign 2014”. In other words, the size of the circles indicates the number of times a person’s account name appears either by being mentioned, replied to or they wrote a comment themselves. In total, the video received 4,332 comments. The biggest magenta circle refers to the user kim621100. The user leads a discussion in how Emma Watson is a men hater and how the HeforShe movement has the goal of female supremacy. This extreme view has sparked a series of responses by young women defending Emma Watson. The second biggest circle refers to the user called Mahohino. The user tried to call out on all the negative criticism Emma Watson was receiving in the comments by saying that but instead of supportive comments, Mahohino got a backlash of comments from men who believe feminism is not needed. The third circle refers to Maddie Katie, a young woman who starts a discussion in how the comment section is full of toxicity and fails to realise Emma Watson was referring to both female and male problems.
ADDITIONAL INFLUENCER ANALYSIS
With the use of the data scrapped by Netlytic and the program excel, charts were made to show the biggest influencers who are currently mentioning Emma Watson. This is helpful because the opinions and emotions of the biggest influencers will give an indication of the opinions and emotions of their followers (Mainly, 2015). Finally, we can compare the difference in influencers talking about Emma Watson generally or her regarding feminism.
"Emma Watson" on Twitter
nytimes – 35886178
TIME – 13828657
enews – 11111510
washingtonpost – 9954189
EW – 6318932
JornalOGLobo – 5181710
BuzzFeed – 5120428
CNNnews18 – 3569571
USATODAY – 3319877
This graph shows the biggest influencers who tweet about or to Emma Watson. The twitter account with most followers, who tweets about Emma Watson, is nytimes, which stands for The New York Times. The New York Times is an offline and online news channel, which has 35.886.178 followers (Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, n.d.). This indicates that this account is extremely influential. The other nine influencers are as well the Twitter accounts of news channels, with one of them being Brazilian and the rest of them American. The news channels, all positively or neutral, report on Emma winning the gender neutral MTV Award for her role in Beauty And The Beast. “Emma Watson made history by accepting the first-ever genderless acting award at the 2017 #MTVAwards” was tweeted by the Buzzfeed account.
"Emma Watson Feminist" on Twitter
piersmorgan – 5769667
StylistMagazine – 692832
benshapiro – 541917
WorldMedia4u – 233862
Talkmaster – 206042
vogueaustralia – 171403
warriorwoman01 – 105477
EagleStarNET – 98545
noname – 96686
eveewing – 52136
The graph above shows the biggest influencer, who recently tweeted about Emma Watson in combination with the word “feminist”. The biggest influencer is Piers Morgan; he is a British TV personality, presenter and journalist and has almost six million followers on Twitter (Swaine, 2011). The other accounts in the top ten influencers are from other celebrities, magazines or young women. The reaction on Emma Watson in combination with the word feminist, are far more negative than positive. For example Ben Shapiro tweets: “'Non-binary\' Actress Presents Feminist Emma Watson With First \'Genderless\' Award. This Is Stupid” – this was re-tweeted numerous times. The magazines are more positive about Emma Watson being a feminist.
Concluding, the results show that newspapers, news channels and magazines are overall very positive or neutral about Emma Watson in general and Emma Watson being a feminist. Newspapers and news channels were more neutral and sometimes positive on this matter whereas magazines were overall positive. They mostly reported on Emma Watson winning the gender-neutral award. The newspapers did not use the word feminist to report on this.
On the other hand, other celebrities, who were, in this case, famous men, or young women, were more negative about Emma being a feminist. The young women were overall critical on her for not standing up for the non-white woman or for being too progressive. The men were more negative on the fact that is had to be a feminist who won the MTV genderless award.
CONCLUSION
In the timeframe in which data was scraped, Emma Watson’ s feminism and the HeForShe campaign have been actively discussed. Data scraped on Twitter showed that the vast majority of the online community in this discussion is supportive of Watson and her ideals. Her image as a feminist is defended and a number of influential, fellow celebrities support the HeForShe movement. To reflect this back on the research question; Emma Watson received several different responses to her feministic outings on social media, a minority of comments with negative content, and a majority of comments that were positive and supportive.
On YouTube, data was scraped off of two videos; Watson’ s speech on feminism at the United Nations and her acceptance speech on winning a genderless acting award. What stands out on the United Nations video is how a negative comment represents the biggest node in the network graph. This would imply that the majority of active likers/commenters have a negative attitude towards Watson, compared to the positive attitude on Twitter. However, the reason why this specific negative node is bigger than the others is because it sparked a discussion in the bigger group of pro-Watson commenters. Ditto for the second biggest node. The activity around Watson’ s acceptance speech is divided between feminist and professional performance remarks. Despite professional performance remarks varying broadly, the comments on the feministic theme are positive.In conclusion, according to data scraped by Netlytic and the above shown Gephi graphs, Emma Watson receives a far higher number of positive than negative remarks on social media on her feminism.
