Study title

After Woolwich Twitter Corpus represents social media data collected from Twitter to analyse social reactions to the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich on 22 May 2013. The dataset covers a roughly 12 month span from March 29th 2013 onwards. The data enabled the tracking of the evolution of public perceptions and sentiments in real-time as key events occur. The dataset comprises of a csv format file with Tweet IDs and Date for all collected tweets. All other relevant tweet data have been omitted to comply with the Twitter API Terms of use. In order to recreate the data, utilise the Twitter API to request each tweet by ID.

The research will analyse social reactions to the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich on 22 May 2013 using social media data collected from Twitter, blogs and other sources. Such data uniquely enable the tracking of the evolution of public perceptions and sentiments in real-time as key events occur. They enable us to track the arc of social reactions from the crime scene through to the conclusion of the court case, to understand how public opinion and sentiment is shaped and shifts as events unfold. The work will produce new insights into the social dynamics of collective responses to high profile violent crimes, alongside methodological innovations developing text-mining methods for rigorous social scientific analyses of social media. Using a case study design applying qualitative, quantitative and geo-spatial data analysis techniques, the project will illuminate the signal event, conflict escalation and de-escalation, influence and resilience dynamics that arise in the aftermath of a major crime.