2023

Say their names: Resurgence in the collective attention toward Black victims of fatal police violence following the death of George Floyd

We characterize ways in which the online activity following George Floyd's death was unparalleled in its volume and intensity, including setting records for activity on Twitter. Our results suggest that the 2020 wave of attention to the Black Lives Matter movement centered past instances of police violence in an unprecedented way, demonstrating the impact of the movement's rhetorical strategy to "say their names."

Wu, H.H., Gallagher, R.J., Alshaabi, T., Adams, J.L., Minot, J.R., Arnold, M.V., Foucault Welles, B., Harp, R., Sheridan Dodds, P., Danforth, C.M. (2023). Say their names: Resurgence in the collective attention toward Black victims of fatal police violence following the death of George Floyd. PLOS ONE 18(1): e0279225.

2022

Nonverbal Behavior in Face-to-face Survey Interviews: An Analysis of Interviewer Behavior and Adequate Responding

We examine relationships between interviewers’ nonverbal behaviors and adequate responding in face-to-face survey interviews. We discuss implications for survey theory and interviewer training.

Foucault Welles, B., Sun, H., & Miller, P. V. (2022). Nonverbal Behavior in Face-to-face Survey Interviews: An Analysis of Interviewer Behavior and Adequate Responding. Field Methods, 34(1), 52–68.

Contrasting social and non-social sources of predictability in human mobility

We develop a “colocation” network to distinguish the mobility patterns of an ego’s social ties from those not socially connected to the ego but who arrive at a location at a similar time as the ego. Such information flow raises privacy concerns: individuals sharing data via mobile applications may be providing actionable information on themselves as well as others whose data are absent.

Chen, Z., Kelty, S., Evsukoff, A.G. et al. Contrasting social and non-social sources of predictability in human mobility. Nat Commun 13, 1922 (2022).

Predictability states in human mobility

Spatio-temporal constraints coupled with social constructs have the potential to create fluid predictability to human mobility patterns. Here, we propose that predictability in human mobility is a {\em state} and not a static trait of individuals.

Pacheco, Oliveira, M., Chen, Z., Barbosa, H., Foucault-Welles, B., Ghoshal, G., & Menezes, R. (2022). Predictability states in human mobility. Arxiv.

2021

A clarified typology of core-periphery structure in networks

Through a detailed case study, we demonstrate the importance of acknowledging this diversity and situating networks within the core-periphery typology when conducting domain-specific analyses.

Ryan J. Gallagher, Jean-Gabriel Young, and Brooke Foucault Welles. 2021. A clarified typology of core-periphery structure in networks. Science Advances 7 (03 2021), eabc9800.

Pandemics, Protests, and Publics: Demographic Activity and Engagement on Twitter in 2020

This paper presents a disaggregated, multifaceted description of the demographics, activity, and engagement of American Twitter users in 2020. Leveraging a panel of 1.6 million Twitter accounts matched to U.S. voting records, we examine the demographics, activity, and engagement of 800,000 American adults who collectively posted nearly 300 million tweets during the first nine months of the year.

Shugars, S., Gitomer, A., McCabe, S., Gallagher, R. J., Joseph, K., Grinberg, N., Doroshenko, L., Foucault Welles, B., & Lazer, D. (2021). Pandemics, Protests, and Publics: Demographic Activity and Engagement on Twitter in 2020. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, 1.

Sustained Online Amplification of COVID-19 Elites in the United States

We discuss the potential for using the disproportionate online voice of crowdsourced COVID-19 elites to equitably promote public health information and mitigate misinformation across networked publics.

Gallagher, R. J., Doroshenko, L., Shugars, S., Lazer, D., & Foucault Welles, B. (2021). Sustained Online Amplification of COVID-19 Elites in the United States. Social Media + Society.

Academic Caregivers on Organizational and Community Resilience in Academia (Fuck Individual Resilience)

In this article, we outline recommendations for shifting away from individual approaches to resilience, instead building organizational and community resilience in academia. Our focus is on caregivers in academic teaching and research roles.

Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn, Emily T Cripe, Brooke Foucault Welles, Shannon C McGregor, Katy E Pearce, Nikki Usher, Jessica Vitak, Academic Caregivers on Organizational and Community Resilience in Academia (Fuck Individual Resilience), Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 14, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages 301–305.

2020

On Writing, Surviving, and Thriving in Communication and Media Studies

In paper I comment on “On Writing in Communication and Media Studies,” Pablo J. Boczkowski and Michael X. Delli Carpini.

Foucault Welles, B. (2020). On Writing in Communication and Media Studies| On Writing, Surviving, and Thriving in Communication and Media Studies. International Journal Of Communication, 14, 2.

Visualizing diversity: Data deficiencies and semiotic strategies

After reviewing historical context and related limitations and controversies, we present a project that explores a novel approach to visualizing US immigration patterns, an approach that relies on visual metaphors and algorithmic construction of visualization patterns based on massive sampling of Census microdata.

Wihbey, J. P., Jackson, S. J., Cruz, P. M., Welles, B. F., Visualizing diversity: Data deficiencies and semiotic strategies. InH. Kennedy & M. Engebretsen (Eds.), Data Visualization in Society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Introduction: Marginality and Social Media

This special issue brings together 13 manuscripts and two practitioner responses that speak to the intersection of marginality and social media in a variety of contexts

Pearce KE, Gonzales A, Foucault Welles B. Introduction: Marginality and Social Media. Social Media + Society. July 2020.

Using Bi-Spectral Clustering to Organize and Analyze Social Media Protest Networks

Using a large sample of tweets from users who discussed the 2016 protests in Charlotte, North Carolina following the extrajudicial killing of Keith Lamont Scott as a case study, we demonstrate how bi-spectral clustering can be applied to sort, sample, and identify ideologically and thematically coherent clusters whose members participated in the protest on Twitter.

Kenneth, J., Gallagher, R. J., & Foucault Welles, B. (2020). Who says what with whom: Using bi-spectral clustering to organize and analyze social media protest networks. Computational Communication Research, 2(2), 153–174.

2019

Women Tweet on Violence: From #YesAllWomen to #MeToo

In this study we argue that the #MeToo boom was made possible by the digital labor, consciousness-raising, and alternative storytelling created through the #YesAllWomen, #SurvivorPrivilege, #WhyIStayed, and #TheEmptyChair hashtag networks.

Bailey, Moya. Jackson, Sarah. Welles, Brooke Foucault (2019). “Women Tweet on Violence: From #YesAllWomen to #MeToo.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 15.

The Battle for #Baltimore: Networked Counterpublics and the Contested Framing of Urban Unrest

We explore how the contested online network comprised of tweets about the April 2015 protests in Baltimore, Maryland, evolved as users constructed meaning and debated questions of protest and race. We find that even within this highly polarized debate, counterpublic frames found widespread support on Twitter.

Foucault Welles, B., & Jackson, S. J. (2019). The Battle for #Baltimore: Networked Counterpublics and the Contested Framing of Urban Unrest. International Journal of Communication, 13 1699-1719.

High School Student Views on the First Amendment: Trends in the 21st Century

This research report offers a number of other insights that may be useful to parents, educators, and policymakers as they contemplate new approaches on a variety of pressing topics, from the shape of civics curricula to policies specifying which kinds of student speech should be tolerated on social media. It also explores the implications of changing student interpretations of the First Amendment and how such changes may affect American society in the long term.

Wihbey, John and Foucault Welles, Brooke, High School Student Views on the First Amendment: Trends in the 21st Century. Knight Foundation Report, 2019.

2018

#GirlsLikeUs: Trans advocacy and community building online

In this research, we examine the advocacy and community building of transgender women on Twitter through methods of network and discourse analysis and the theory of networked counterpublics. By highlighting the network structure and discursive meaning making of the #GirlsLikeUs network, we argue that the digital labor of trans women, especially trans women of color, represents the vanguard of struggles over self-definition.

Jackson SJ, Bailey M, Foucault Welles B. #GirlsLikeUs: Trans advocacy and community building online. New Media & Society. 2018;20(5):1868-1888.

Network Visualization and Problem-Solving Support: A Cognitive Fit Study

This study examines the relative effectiveness of four different social network representations for improving human problem-solving accuracy and speed: node-link diagrams, adjacency matrices, tables, and text. Results suggest that visual network representations improve problem-solving accuracy and speed, compared with text.

Welles, Brooke Foucault and Xu, Weiai, "Network Visualization and Problem-Solving Support: A Cognitive Fit Study" (2018). Social Networks. 85.

#thanksfortheinvite: Examining Attention to Social Exclusion Signals Online

This study randomly assigned 163 participants to one of two conditions where they were exposed to hypothetical written scenarios describing conversations between their friends in which they were excluded or included.

Jessica M. Covert, Michael A. Stefanone, Brooke Foucault-Welles, Zhiying Yue, and Zena Toh. 2018. #thanksfortheinvite: Examining Attention to Social Exclusion Signals Online. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society (SMSociety '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 51–63.

2017

Friendly tanning: young adults’ engagement with friends around indoor tanning

Indoor tanning (IT), particularly during early adulthood, increases risk for melanoma and is exceedingly common among youth. Social influence, including social norms, promotes IT but little is known about young adults’ engagement with friends around tanning. We examined IT behaviors and tanning-related communication with friends at three universities.

Rodríguez, V.M., Daniel, C.L., Welles, B.F. et al. Friendly tanning: young adults’ engagement with friends around indoor tanning. J Behav Med 40, 631–640.

The urgent need to ban youth indoor tanning: evidence from college undergraduates

We examined time of IT initiation (history and current use) in college students. We conducted a study of undergraduate students from three colleges in the USA (in Massachusetts and Alabama). A cross-sectional survey was administered in March–April 2014 using convenience sampling, a technique commonly employed in college tanning studies. This study is novel in its examination of age of initiation tracking indoor tanners from prior to high school to a number of years of college.

Daniel, C.L., Hay, J.L., Welles, B.F. et al. The urgent need to ban youth indoor tanning: evidence from college undergraduates. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 7, 645–647.

2016

Volunteer Science: An Online Laboratory for Social Psychology Experiments

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of one online laboratory for conducting experiments, Volunteer Science, and report the results of six studies which test canonical behaviors commonly captured in social psychological experiments. 

Radford, J., Keegan, B., Ognyanova, K., Pilny, A., Foucault Welles, B., Meleis, W., Lazer, D. (2016) Volunteer Science: An Online Laboratory for Social Psychology Experiments. Social Psychology Quarterly, 79 (4), 376-396.

Social Media Use and Adaptation Among Chinese Students Beginning to Study in the United States

Using an online questionnaire administered to 120 Chinese international college students studying in the U.S., we explored the potential impact that the utilization of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) could have on the construction of such social networks, when used during study abroad preparation.

Forbush, E. and Foucault Welles, B. (2016) Social Media Use and Adaptation Among Chinese Students Beginning to Study in the United States. International Journal for Intercultural Communication. 50(1), 1-12. 

Computational CAM: Studying Children and Media in the Digital Age

In this essay, I outline the promise and peril of computational social science for children and media research, drawing on advances from related fields to offer suggestions for researchers hoping to make use of big data and computational analytics.

Foucault Welles, B. (2016) Computational CAM: Studying Children and Media in the Digital Age. Journal of Children and Media. 10(1), 72-80.

#Ferguson is Everywhere: Initiators in Emerging Counterpublic Networks

We locate early tweets about Ferguson and the use of the hashtag #Ferguson at the center of a counterpublic network that provoked and shaped public debates about race, policing, governance, and justice. Extending theory on networked publics, we examine how everyday citizens, followed by activists and journalists, influenced the #Ferguson Twitter network with a focus on emergent counterpublic structure and discursive strategy. 

Jackson, S. and Foucault Welles, B. (2016) #Ferguson is Everywhere: Initiators in Emerging Counterpublic Networks. Information, Communication and Society. 19(3), 397-418.

2015

Hijacking #myNYPD: Social media Dissent and Networked Publics

In this article we investigate the hijacking of the Twitter hashtag #myNYPD following the launch of a public relations campaign by the New York City Police Department in April of 2014. Theorizing networked counterpublics, we examine how Twitter was used as a platform to generate and promote counterpublic narratives about racial profiling and police misconduct. 

Jackson, S. J. and Foucault Welles, B.  (2015) Hijacking #myNYPD: Social media Dissent and Networked Publics. Journal of Communication. 65(6), 932-952.

Individual Motivations and Network Effects: A Multi-Level Analysis of the Structure of Online Social Relationships

This article explores the relative influence of individual and network-level effects on the emergence of online social relationships. Using network modeling and data drawn from logs of social behavior inside the virtual world Second Life, we combine individual- and network-level theories into an integrated model of online social relationship formation.

Foucault Welles, B. and Contractor, N. (2015) Individual Motivations and Network Effects: A Multi-Level Analysis of the Structure of Online Social Relationships. ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 659(1), 180-190.

Visualizing Computational Social Science: The Multiple Lives of a Complex Image

Using Adamic and Glance’s image of the political blogosphere as an example and social representations theory as a guiding framework, we explore how computational social science visualizations may aid and complicate public understanding of this new science. 

Foucault Welles, B. and Meirelles, I. (2015) Visualizing Computational Social Science: The Multiple Lives of a Complex Image. Science Communication. 13(1), 35-48.

2014

Dynamic Models of Communication in an Online Friendship Network

In this article, we argue for the usefulness of relational event network analysis to study online communication networks. Unlike other network analytic techniques that require online communication data to be summarized prior to analysis, relational event network analysis uses un-summarized time-stamped data to track the dynamic evolution of communication networks. 

Foucault Welles, B., Vashevko, A., Bennett, N., and Contractor, N. (2014) Dynamic Models of Communication in an Online Friendship Network. Communication Methods and Measures. 8(4), 223-243

On Minorities and Outliers: The Case for Making Big Data Small

In this essay, I make the case for choosing to examine small subsets of Big Data datasets—making big data small.

Foucault Welles, B. (2014). On Minorities and Outliers: The Case for Making Big Data Small. Big Data & Society, 1(1), 2053951714540613

Virtually Friends: An exploration of Friendship Claims and Expectations in Immersive Virtual Worlds

Through 65 semi-structured interviews with residents in highly-populated portions of the virtual world Second Life, we explore the nature of friendship within the immersive virtual world, examining friendship claims and expectations and the specific features of the virtual world that enable friendships to emerge.

Foucault Welles, B., Rousse, T., Merrill, N. and Contractor, N. (2014). Virtually Friends: An exploration of Friendship Claims and Expectations in Immersive Virtual Worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 7,2, article 7024, ISSN 1941-9477

2002

Web vs. Campus Store? Why Students Buy Textbooks Online

This study proposes and tests several social and perceptual motivations for shopping online. Using online textbook purchasing as a model, we outline predictors of online purchasing based on motivation theories drawn from traditional online consumer motivation research, social motivation theory, social influence theory and uses and gratifications theory. 

Foucault, B. and Scheufele, D. A. (2002). Web vs. Campus Store? Why Students Buy Textbooks Online. The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 19 (5), 409-423.