Trend Topic Analysis with R

Twitter is one of the most popular social media applications in recent years. With the R program, it is possible to analyze many data from Twitter. Two of these analyzes are sentiment and polarity analysis.

These analyzes were applied to one of the trend topics on Twitter. For this purpose, the first trend topics in the world were found with "getTrend ()" function. As a results of this research, the most popular trend topic is #gretathunberg.

Afterwards, tweets were cleaned and sentiment and polarity analysis were performed.

First, polarity analysis was performed. As a results of this analysis, the majority of tweets related to #gretathumberg are positive.

Figure 1: polarity analysis

Secondly, sentiment analysis was performed. According to this analysis, anticipation and trust are the most dominant feelings among tweets.

Figure 2: Sentiment analysis (second column is anticipation.)

Finally, the most popular devices, which are used to post on twitter, were analyzed. Twitter web app and twitter android are the most used software.

Figure 3: Most used software and devices

The relationship between Twitter and ISIS

In recent years, great development has been seen in technology. One of the most important of these technologies is social media.

The development of social media has played an important role in many social protests in recent years in the world. The best example of such social protests is the Arab Spring period.

During the Arab Spring, social media played an important role in helping people get news and organize. However, this development of social media is not only used by innocent people. Especially in recent years, terrorist organizations also benefit from the development of social media.

The most active terrorist organization on social media is ISIS. In particular, ISIS was using Twitter very actively. %90 of ISIS social media was conducted via twitter. ISIS sympathizers posted 200000 tweets per day.

Therefore, in this study, tweets of ISIS sympathizers between 2015-2016 were examined. The results of the research are as follows;

Most active 10 twitter users about ISIS
username,                         sum(weight)
Uncle_SamCoco,             1610
mobi_ayubi,                     1071
WarReporter1,                 706
warrnews,                         657
melvynlion,                      640
RamiAlLolah,                  606
MaghrabiArabi,               450
_IshfaqAhmad,                430
AsimAbuMerjem,           289
NaseemAhmed50,           251

The research was first started to analyze one of the most active users. This user is war breaking news. This user's most commonly used words are as follows;

[1] "after"       "against"     "aleppo"      "alqassam"    "amp"         "and"         "are"         "army"        "assad"       "attack"      "border"   
[12] "breaking"    "captured"    "city"        "civilians"   "claims"      "clashes"     "damascus"    "destroyed"   "dozens"      "during"      "fallujah" 
[23] "fight"       "fighters"    "for"         "forces"      "from"        "fsa"         "gaza"        "hamas"       "have"        "homs"        "huge"     
[34] "injured"     "iranian"     "iraq"        "iraqi"       "isis"        "israel"      "israeli"     "killed"      "least"       "militant"    "militants"
[45] "military"    "more"        "mosul"       "mujahid"     "near"        "new"         "news"        "nidalgazaui" "north"       "northern"    "not"     
[56] "now"         "offensive"   "one"         "over"        "palmyra"     "people"      "province"    "rebels"      "regime"      "reports"     "russia"   
[67] "russian"     "saa"         "saudi"       "sham"        "shiite"      "shot"        "soldiers"    "south"       "southern"    "suicide"     "syria"   
[78] "syrian"      "that"        "the"         "their"       "they"        "this"        "today"       "troops"      "turkey"      "turkish"     "video"   
[89] "war"         "warnews"     "was"         "were"        "who"         "will"        "with"        "ypg"

In addition to the war breaking news, the tweets of the two users were analyzed also. The first user was Fahad al-Kuwaiti.

Fahad mostly used words such as state, mujahideen and Islamic. After Fahad, the tweets of Flames of Haqq were examined.

These are the most popular words used by Flames of Haqq. In addition, the detailed list of words used by Haqq is as follows.

[1] "ahmad"        "alasma"       "allah"        "amp"          "and"          "are"          "cerantonio"   "follow"       "for"          "from"     
[11] "isis"         "jibril"       "johnsonsbot"  "just"         "keep"         "killed"       "musa"         "mustaklash"   "nby"          "one"       
[21] "our"          "palmyra"      "please"       "rer"          "sparksofirha" "str"          "that"         "the"          "this"         "today"     
[31] "ulhusna"      "video"        "warreporter"  "who"          "with"         "wwayf"        "you"          "your"

As seen in all three examples, the most commonly used words are words such as kill or killed, video, state and war. ISIS sympathizers positively propagate ISIS with these words. As a result, ISIS sympathizers make positive propaganda through twitter. The authorities should take action on this matter.