Axel Bruns
- 30 Mar. 2026 – Invited presentation at GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Cologne
Presentation Slides
Abstract
Social network analysis is a key tool in communication research, where it is often used to identify the discursive alliances and antagonisms that indicate polarisation between participants. However, it struggles in analysing activity patterns on communication platforms that provide few data points on interactions between actors (e.g. Facebook or Instagram), and in exploring the interconnections between multiple activity practices that are interwoven with each other. This talk introduces the new approach of practice mapping, which advances beyond the network analysis and visualisation of direct interactions between accounts and instead uses vector embeddings of networked actions and interactions to map the commonalities and disjunctures in the practices of social media users. In particular, this innovative methodological framework has the potential to incorporate multiple distinct modes of activity and interactivity into a single practice map, can be further enriched with account-level attributes such as information gleaned from textual analysis, profile information, available demographic details, and other features, and can be applied even to a cross-platform analysis of communicative patterns and practices. Drawing on a case study of public posting activity on Facebook during the Voice to Parliament referendum campaign in Australia, this talk outlines the practice mapping approach and demonstrates the insights into patterns of destructive polarisation between individuals and groups that it can produce.
