Week 03 - Rehydrating Tweets

Topics

This week, we'll see how to download tweets via the Twitter API.

Readings and Tasks

• Read and follow the instructions on using twarc

• The Panacea Lab at Georgia State has gathered Tweet IDs for all tweets about the Coronavirus, starting back in March. Read this page to understand how the data was collected and how to get the information.

• Download all Tweet IDs gathered by the Panacea Lab for October 2, 2020 -- this was the day that it was announced that Donald Trump had contracted coronavirus. Select a subset of 10,000 tweets uniformly at random and rehydrate them. Find the proportion of tweets mentioning "Trump" (case-insensitive) and report this number.

  • Feel free to work in pairs. If you do not yet have a Twitter API key, make a post on Campuswire in order to find a partner with an API key, and you can work together.