Join UT Libraries Tuesday, April 15, from 3-4 pm for Digital Scholars in Practice: Social Media and the Global South - A Case Study of a Homegrown Indian Social Media Platform!
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.
Refreshments will be provided.
Presenters:
- Sonali Hornick, Brumley Graduate Fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law & M.S. Candidate in Business Analytics
- Ian Blakley, Undergraduate Student in Informatics
- Kellen Sharp, Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Computational Media
- Dhiraj Murthy, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies and of Sociology & Director of the Computational Media Lab
Location: Perry-Castañeda Library Scholars Lab, Data Lab (PCL 2.202)
