What can we learn about social integration in London from Twitter?

At the beginning of 2019 the Greater London Authority (GLA) commissioned Ipsos MORI to develop a deeper understanding of social integration using publicly accessible Twitter data. 

The research sought to measure the sentiment expressed in Tweets sent within and about London across a range of social integration sub-topics. It also sought to assess how the topics and sentiment contained in Tweets differed by demographic and by London Borough.

The research also aimed to identify a methodology that could be repeated at different points in the future to collect comparable data, so that changes in sentiment or topic frequency could be tracked over time.

Twitter was found to be a rich source of information relating to social integration in London. It provided anecdotal insight into the impact of social integration; both positive and negative. However, findings from Twitter - while of value in their own right - cannot be generalised to the wider population.

2019年初，大伦敦管理局（GLA）委托Ipsos MORI公司利用公开可访问的Twitter数据进行一项研究，旨在深化对社交融合的理解。该研究旨在衡量在伦敦及其周边发送的推文中表达的情感，覆盖了一系列社交融合的子话题。此外，研究还旨在评估推文中的主题和情感如何因人口统计特征和伦敦各区而异。研究还致力于确定一种可以在未来不同时间点重复使用的方法，以便收集可比数据，从而追踪情感或主题频率随时间的变化。Twitter被证明是关于伦敦社交融合的丰富信息来源，它提供了关于社交融合影响的轶事性见解，包括积极和消极两方面。然而，Twitter的研究发现虽然其本身具有一定的价值，但并不能推广至更广泛的群体中。