This paper has been published as: Olessia Koltsova and Sergei Koltcov (2013) Mapping the public agenda with topic modeling: The case of the Russian livejournal. Policy and Internet 5 (2) 207-227.
Olessia Koltsova, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia
Kirill Maslinsky, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia
Sergei Koltcov, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia
Abstract
The long-term methodological goal of the study is to borrow and/or develop and introduce into social science a range of new methods of collection and analysis of big data in order to be able to derive sociological conclusions from them. The immediate goal of the study presented is to describe topical structure of the Russian language blogosphere as some reflection of public opinion in order to see what social issues are important, what cleavages exist and how it changes over time. Russian elections and protests in December 2011 is the key test issue explored in the project.
