Video now available: 'Online footprints of family change: A study based on Twitter' with Nicolò Cavalli

Nicolò Cavalli visited CPC on on 21 March 2019 to give a seminar on his study using Twitter data to study family change. This approach provides an innovative way to map the cultural footprints that underlie family change, updating the Goffmanian research project concerned with the presentation of self in everyday life to the “Internet era”.

We welcomed Nicolò from Nuffield College, University of Oxford, where he is a DPhil candidate in Sociology working under Professor Francesco Billiari and Professor David Kirk. He holds a BA in Politics from the University of Bologna and a MSc in Economics from Bocconi University, Milan. Before joining Nuffield College, Nicolò worked as journalist, reporting on social issues and political movements from Italy, Greece, Catalunya, California and Peru. His Doctoral Thesis focuses on how intergroup emotional stratification emerged in Europe in times of economic recession.

In his seminar, he demonstrated how his research team have built a large dataset (~5M observations) using the popular micro-blogging platform, Twitter. By analysing self-reported biographical information of Twitter users located in the United States, the researchers have constructed simple State-level indicators for the prevalence of “traditional” versus “modern” family roles. He discussed how the measures correlate spatially to real-world behavioural indices linked to the ideas of Second Demographic Transition and Gender Revolution. They have also analysed specific cultural correlates to self-reported identities, aiming at capturing the heterogeneity of ideas about family that contributes to shaping socio-demographic change.

A recording of the seminar is available on the CPC YouTube channel:

Posted 29/03/2019 09:22