Census of Twitter users: Scraping and describing the national network of South Korea

Abstract

Population-level national networks on social media are precious and essential for network science and behavioural science. This study collected a population-level Twitter network, based on both language and geolocation tags. We proposed a set of validation approaches to evaluate the validity of our datasets. Finally, we re-examined classical network and communication propositions (e.g., 80/20 rule, six degrees of separation) on the national network. Our dataset and strategy would flourish the data collection pool of population-level social networks and further develop the research of network analysis in digital media environment.