Daniel Birkholz, Liz Fisher, and Isabella Neubauer
“Atlas of a Medieval Life: The Itineraries of Roger de Breynton”
Friday, April 11th, 12:30-1:30
PCL Scholars Lab
This project explores how computational methodologies and data-visualization platforms can bring the medieval subfields of literary studies, cartography, and biography into fruitful dialogue. The documentary research underlying the project centers on the career of Roger de Breynton (c.1290-1351), a historically obscure but widely traveled and well-connected Canon of Hereford Cathedral, in provincial SW England. This talk will focus on the project’s datasets, tools, and strategies for scholarly communication.
Sonali Hornick, Ian Blakley, Kellen Sharp, and Dhiraj Murthy
"Social Media and the Global South: A Case Study of a Homegrown Indian Social Media Platform"
Tuesday, April 15th, 3-4:00
PCL Scholars Lab
This study investigates Koo, an Indian microblogging platform, as a significant alternative to global social media platforms like Twitter, focusing on its role in promoting digital sovereignty and cultural representation in India. Using a publicly available data repository comprising posts, comments, shares, likes, and user data from 2020 to September 2023, we analyzed Koo’s demographics, linguistic diversity, and popular content. Among linguistic communities, Hindi, English, and Portuguese produced the most content, with Hindi leading at 35.1 million posts, reflecting a larger user base and higher engagement levels in India. English followed with 22.0 million posts, and Portuguese with 4.9 million posts. A time-series analysis revealed significant trends in user engagement, notably a surge in February 2021, coinciding with Indian government officials endorsing Koo during a Twitter standoff. Occupational demographics identified students and business owners as the most prevalent occupations among Koo users, highlighting the platform’s appeal to younger demographics and entrepreneurial individuals. Content analysis revealed that popular topics included Indian politics, cricket, and memes, reflecting the cultural interests of the user base. This analysis was further supplemented by utilizing DeepSeek to ascertain latent contextual information. The most frequently linked URLs directed to video content on YouTube, underscoring a strong preference for multimedia content. These findings underscore the growing importance of localized social media platforms in shaping digital discourse and cultural identity, emphasizing Koo’s contributions to linguistic inclusivity and political engagement within India’s evolving social media landscape.
