A big-data approach to studying China’s online media (JMSC China-Media Research Series)

Title: A big-data approach to studying China’s online media
Speaker: Dr King Wa-Fu, Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Studies Centre
Venue: Digital Media Lab, Eliot Hall
Date: Oct 4 2013
Time: 1.00-2.00 p.m.

Abstract: Since January 2011, a research team at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU, led by Dr. K.W. Fu, has been sampling timelines of more than 350,000 Chinese microbloggers who have more than 1,000 followers. The data are used in a number of academic research projects. The methodology has been detailed in an IEEE Internet Computing article (Fu, Chan, Chau, 2013). The study also sampled and analyzed Sina Weibo accounts randomly and reported the findings in a PLOS ONE article (Fu, Chau, 2013). The project has since released for public access a database of 227 million weibo data entries. This talk will present the dataset, and introduce new research projects and preliminary findings.

Dr Fu King-wa

About the speaker: Dr. Fu is Assistant Professor at the JMSC. He has a PhD from the JMSC, a MA in Social Sciences and a MPhil in Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He obtained an undergraduate degree in Engineering from HKU. He was a journalist at the Hong Kong Economic Journal.