Assignment 3: Twitter data

CUsRise

For my twitter project I decided to look at tweets pertaining to the Boston Celtics, a basketball team that plays in the NBA. The following chart and tables aim to give a general idea of the twitter universe’s opinion on the team and look at popular tweets. The key word that will be used is #CUsRise. This is the hashtag that the team uses on twitter and is used exclusively to talk about the Celtics. This will help make sure that we are looking at tweets talking about the Celtics basketball team and no other uses than referring to them. This graph looks at the sentiment analysis of the tweets and is useful to get a gage of the overall mood of the twitter public opinion by looking at.

num_tweets <- 2500

c <-searchTwitteR('CUsRise', n= num_tweets, since = '2018-11-01')
c_df <- twListToDF(c)

reg <- "([^A-Za-z\\d#@']|'(?![A-Za-z\\d#@]))"
c_words <- c_df %>%
  filter(!str_detect(text, '^"')) %>%
  mutate(text = str_replace_all(text, "https://t.co/[A-Za-z\\d]+|&amp;", "")) %>%
  unnest_tokens(word, text, token = "regex", pattern = reg) %>%
  filter(!word %in% stop_words$word,
         str_detect(word, "[a-z]"))

nrc <- sentiments %>%
  filter(lexicon == "nrc") %>%
  select(word, sentiment)

c_words_sentiments <- c_words %>% inner_join(nrc, by = "word")

c_graph <-c_words_sentiments %>% group_by(sentiment) %>% summarize(n = n()) %>% arrange(desc(n))

ggplot(c_graph, aes(x= sentiment, y= n))+ geom_bar(stat = "identity", fill= "lightgreen" )+ theme_minimal()+ labs(
  y= "count",
  title= "Twitter feelings toward the Celtics"
)+ scale_y_continuous(limits = c(0,350), breaks= c(0,50,100,150,200,250,300,350,400,450,500))

The Celtics have had a rough start to their season with a 11-10 record (at the time of writing) so a high negative reaction is logical and anyone who has been following them would expect it. It would also be natural to have a high negative sentiment after a loss as well and to have a higher positive sentiment after a big win. Now let’s look at some of the most popular tweets with the Celtics hashtag.

The table below will look at the top favorited tweets.

c_df_top_favorite <-head(c_df %>% select(text, favoriteCount, screenName) %>% arrange(desc(favoriteCount)),10)

kable (c_df_top_favorite) %>% kable_styling(bootstrap_options = c("striped", "hover", "condensed", "responsive"))

text	favoriteCount	screenName
Kyrie Irving records 26 PTS, 10 ASTS, 5 STLS in New Orleans! #CUsRise https://t.co/za5AwARBjo	2920	NBA
Kyrie Irving records 26 PTS, 10 ASTS, 5 STLS in New Orleans! #CUsRise https://t.co/za5AwARBjo	2051	NBA
Jayson Tatum (20 PTS, 7 REBS) closes the game out with this slam! Final in New Orleans: #CUsRise 124 #DoItBig 107 https://t.co/OEUH0i2kCO	577	NBA
Tatum has been very consistent (20 PTS, 7 REB) in his sophomore season. #CUsRise https://t.co/zCUXNqiVKx	543	NBATV
Scary Terry before the buzzer! #CUsRise https://t.co/Sj5LUF2C8B	255	NBATV
Uncle Drew (26 PTS, 10 AST) led the Celtics to a road win against the Pelicans! #CUsRise https://t.co/uMMh6LsHDv	235	NBATV
@KyrieIrving comeu a bola na vitória dos @Celtics (26 PTS e 10 AST) em Nova Orleans! #CUsRise https://t.co/edbCT4Q7dq	180	NBABrasil
Kyrie Irving en la victoria de Boston Celtics ante New Orleans Pelicans: 26 puntos 10 asistencias 5 robos #CUsRise https://t.co/hj2ZyIJ4Yk	171	Pasion_Basket1
Hell yeah #CUsRise	151	AnnaHorford
¡26 puntos, 10 asistencias y 5 robos para @KyrieIrving en el triunfo de los @celtics ante los Pelicans! #CUsRise https://t.co/ec5P7HhJFD	100	NBALatam

Looking at the top tweets they seem to be mostly highlight clips with some more text based tweets closer to the bottom. This makes sense as twitter is good platform to post small video clips more specifically highlights.

c_df_top_retweet <-head(c_df %>% filter(isRetweet== FALSE) %>% select(text,retweetCount,screenName) %>% arrange(desc(retweetCount)),10)

kable(c_df_top_retweet)%>% kable_styling(bootstrap_options = c("striped", "hover", "condensed", "responsive"))

text	retweetCount	screenName
Kyrie Irving records 26 PTS, 10 ASTS, 5 STLS in New Orleans! #CUsRise https://t.co/za5AwARBjo	679	NBA
Kyrie Irving records 26 PTS, 10 ASTS, 5 STLS in New Orleans! #CUsRise https://t.co/za5AwARBjo	387	NBA
Jayson Tatum (20 PTS, 7 REBS) closes the game out with this slam! Final in New Orleans: #CUsRise 124 #DoItBig 107 https://t.co/OEUH0i2kCO	157	NBA
Tatum has been very consistent (20 PTS, 7 REB) in his sophomore season. #CUsRise https://t.co/zCUXNqiVKx	83	NBATV
Scary Terry before the buzzer! #CUsRise https://t.co/Sj5LUF2C8B	61	NBATV
Uncle Drew (26 PTS, 10 AST) led the Celtics to a road win against the Pelicans! #CUsRise https://t.co/uMMh6LsHDv	56	NBATV
Kyrie Irving en la victoria de Boston Celtics ante New Orleans Pelicans: 26 puntos 10 asistencias 5 robos #CUsRise https://t.co/hj2ZyIJ4Yk	41	Pasion_Basket1
Our general sports podcast is ready and waiting for you guys! https://t.co/c9YAtvH4KN available on iTunes, stitcher https://t.co/MJZ4Vi4szT	17	celtics_pulse
#Autographed #TomBrady #Patriots #SuperBowl (51) 16x20 “SCREAM” Photo-(Tristar/LOA) @ ONLY $810! #AUCTION ENDS TONI https://t.co/Xalypo0UaX	15	SportsDen2016
OUR #TEN @Ebay #ThanksgivingWeekend #AUCTIONS W/NO RESERVES END TONIGHT WED 11/27 BETWEEN 9-10pm! #Brady #Tatum https://t.co/X8kS2RRJSB	15	Limited66702616

Here we can see some of the most recent top retweeted tweets. Not surprisingly the NBA accounts have the most retweets because their tweets get much more exposure than the average twitter user.

c_df_top_name <-head(c_df %>% group_by(screenName) %>% summarize(n=n()) %>% arrange(desc(n)),10)
kable(c_df_top_name)%>% kable_styling(bootstrap_options = c("striped", "hover", "condensed", "responsive"))

screenName	n
CelticsPlacar	95
Celtics_Brasil	64
Luckasguns	48
BlackOut1000000	39
CelticsForeve11	30
CelticsLead	28
SportsDen2016	27
victorpfff	27
__haganeno	18
Limited66702616	16

Here are some of the most active tweeters using the #CUsRise hashtag. Interestingly it seems that the top two accounts are both from Brazil.

Assignment 3: Twitter data

Chris Beland

November 28, 2018

CUsRise

Conclusion