Topic and Network Structure of Virtual Urban Communities

Student: Voskresenskii Vadim

Faculty: Saint-Petersburg School of Social Sciences

Educational Programme: Modern Social Analysis (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2017

Paper is concerned with online groups created by urban residentы on social networking site (SNS) "VK". Work is focused on the analysis of thematic profiles of groups related to different territorial areas and on overlaps between audiences of these groups. In this work, the author applies topic modeling algorithm accompanied with descriptive statistics and social network methods. There was found that groups of administrative and municipal districts are used by members for consuming information, whereas local groups perform instrumental functions. At the same time, audiences of different groups are poorly interconnected. Besides, the author claims that the structure of SNS does not motivate members of local groups to be involved in a wide range of initiative communities but it can play the role of infrastructure connecting professional activists and ordinary residents.

Student Theses at HSE must be completed in accordance with the University Rules and regulations specified by each educational programme.

Summaries of all theses must be published and made freely available on the HSE website.

The full text of a thesis can be published in open access on the HSE website only if the authoring student (copyright holder) agrees, or, if the thesis was written by a team of students, if all the co-authors (copyright holders) agree. After a thesis is published on the HSE website, it obtains the status of an online publication.

Student theses are objects of copyright and their use is subject to limitations in accordance with the Russian Federation’s law on intellectual property.

In the event that a thesis is quoted or otherwise used, reference to the author’s name and the source of quotation is required.

Search all student theses