Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse

Chris Zimmerman; Yuran  Chen; Daniel Hardt; Ravi Vatrapu

doi:10.1145/2631488.2631501

Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse

Chris Zimmerman, Yuran Chen, Daniel Hardt, Ravi Vatrapu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

Abstract

On February 9, 2014, a giraffe named Marius was put to death by the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, sparking a storm of public discussion nationally and internationally. This paper presents a comparative informatics case study of the event. We employ the method of grounded comparison in the examination of the text of postings and articles in social media as well as mainstream media in Danish and English languages. At the macro-structural level, the social media discourse is characterized by arguments grounded in scientific and bureaucratic rationality, cultural and linguistic relativity, and animal ethics. At the micro-genetic level of language use, our findings show that international discourse was much more intense and emotional than the discourse in Danish media as evidenced by the differences in volume, sentiment and topics in English vs. Danish data. While these differences undoubtedly reflect a broad range of cultural, linguistic, organizational and societal factors, we suggest that to some extent the differences might result from specific features of the media landscape in Denmark.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries : Culture, Distance & Technology
Editors	Naomi Yamashita, Vanessa Evers, Carolyn Rosé, Mary Beth Watson-Manheim
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Publication date	2014
Pages	131-140
ISBN (Print)	9781450325578
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2631488.2631501
Publication status	Published - 2014
Event	The 5th ACM International Conference on Collaboration Across Boundaries (CABS 2014): Culture, Distance & Technology - Kyoto, Japan Duration: 20 Aug 2014 → 22 Aug 2014 Conference number: 5 http://cabs.acm.org/2014/

Conference

Conference	The 5th ACM International Conference on Collaboration Across Boundaries (CABS 2014)
Number	5
Country/Territory	Japan
City	Kyoto
Period	20/08/2014 → 22/08/2014
Internet address	http://cabs.acm.org/2014/

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Zimmerman, C., Chen, Y., Hardt, D., & Vatrapu, R. (2014). Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse. In N. Yamashita, V. Evers, C. Rosé, & M. B. Watson-Manheim (Eds.), Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries: Culture, Distance & Technology (pp. 131-140). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2631488.2631501

Zimmerman, Chris ; Chen, Yuran ; Hardt, Daniel et al. / Marius, the Giraffe : A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse. Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries: Culture, Distance & Technology. editor / Naomi Yamashita ; Vanessa Evers ; Carolyn Rosé ; Mary Beth Watson-Manheim. New York : Association for Computing Machinery, 2014. pp. 131-140

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title = "Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse",

abstract = "On February 9, 2014, a giraffe named Marius was put to death by the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, sparking a storm of public discussion nationally and internationally. This paper presents a comparative informatics case study of the event. We employ the method of grounded comparison in the examination of the text of postings and articles in social media as well as mainstream media in Danish and English languages. At the macro-structural level, the social media discourse is characterized by arguments grounded in scientific and bureaucratic rationality, cultural and linguistic relativity, and animal ethics. At the micro-genetic level of language use, our findings show that international discourse was much more intense and emotional than the discourse in Danish media as evidenced by the differences in volume, sentiment and topics in English vs. Danish data. While these differences undoubtedly reflect a broad range of cultural, linguistic, organizational and societal factors, we suggest that to some extent the differences might result from specific features of the media landscape in Denmark.",

keywords = "Comparative informatics, Grounded comparison, Computational linguistics, Social data analytics, Social graph, Social text, Sentiment analysis",

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Zimmerman, C, Chen, Y, Hardt, D & Vatrapu, R 2014, Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse. in N Yamashita, V Evers, C Rosé & MB Watson-Manheim (eds), Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries: Culture, Distance & Technology. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, pp. 131-140, The 5th ACM International Conference on Collaboration Across Boundaries (CABS 2014), Kyoto, Japan, 20/08/2014. https://doi.org/10.1145/2631488.2631501

Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse. / Zimmerman, Chris; Chen, Yuran ; Hardt, Daniel et al.
Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries: Culture, Distance & Technology. ed. / Naomi Yamashita; Vanessa Evers; Carolyn Rosé; Mary Beth Watson-Manheim. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2014. p. 131-140.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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T1 - Marius, the Giraffe

T2 - The 5th ACM International Conference on Collaboration Across Boundaries (CABS 2014)

AU - Zimmerman, Chris

AU - Chen, Yuran

AU - Hardt, Daniel

AU - Vatrapu, Ravi

N1 - Conference code: 5

PY - 2014

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N2 - On February 9, 2014, a giraffe named Marius was put to death by the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, sparking a storm of public discussion nationally and internationally. This paper presents a comparative informatics case study of the event. We employ the method of grounded comparison in the examination of the text of postings and articles in social media as well as mainstream media in Danish and English languages. At the macro-structural level, the social media discourse is characterized by arguments grounded in scientific and bureaucratic rationality, cultural and linguistic relativity, and animal ethics. At the micro-genetic level of language use, our findings show that international discourse was much more intense and emotional than the discourse in Danish media as evidenced by the differences in volume, sentiment and topics in English vs. Danish data. While these differences undoubtedly reflect a broad range of cultural, linguistic, organizational and societal factors, we suggest that to some extent the differences might result from specific features of the media landscape in Denmark.

AB - On February 9, 2014, a giraffe named Marius was put to death by the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, sparking a storm of public discussion nationally and internationally. This paper presents a comparative informatics case study of the event. We employ the method of grounded comparison in the examination of the text of postings and articles in social media as well as mainstream media in Danish and English languages. At the macro-structural level, the social media discourse is characterized by arguments grounded in scientific and bureaucratic rationality, cultural and linguistic relativity, and animal ethics. At the micro-genetic level of language use, our findings show that international discourse was much more intense and emotional than the discourse in Danish media as evidenced by the differences in volume, sentiment and topics in English vs. Danish data. While these differences undoubtedly reflect a broad range of cultural, linguistic, organizational and societal factors, we suggest that to some extent the differences might result from specific features of the media landscape in Denmark.

KW - Comparative informatics

KW - Grounded comparison

KW - Computational linguistics

KW - Social data analytics

KW - Social graph

KW - Social text

KW - Sentiment analysis

U2 - 10.1145/2631488.2631501

DO - 10.1145/2631488.2631501

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 9781450325578

SP - 131

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BT - Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries

A2 - Yamashita, Naomi

A2 - Evers, Vanessa

A2 - Rosé, Carolyn

A2 - Watson-Manheim, Mary Beth

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York

Y2 - 20 August 2014 through 22 August 2014

ER -

Zimmerman C, Chen Y, Hardt D , Vatrapu R. Marius, the Giraffe: A Comparative Informatics Case Study of Linguistic Features of the Social Media Discourse. In Yamashita N, Evers V, Rosé C, Watson-Manheim MB, editors, Proceeding CABS '14 Proceedings of the 5th ACM International Conference on Collaoration Across Boundaries: Culture, Distance & Technology. New York: Association for Computing Machinery. 2014. p. 131-140 doi: 10.1145/2631488.2631501