IFISCDisplaying the Catalan Way using tweets.

Displaying the Catalan Way using tweets.

The Catalan Way is clearly visible using geolocated tweets even an hour before the starting of the demonstration.

IFISC researchers follow geolocated tweets in singular events to study their impact on urban mobility.

The Catalan Way, shaping a V following Barcelona's main avenues, is clearly visible on a map by plotting geolocated tweets. The demonstration on occasion of the Day of Catalonia was called for 5:14 pm, today September, 11. This study has been performed by a team of researchers specialized on social network analysis at the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems composed by Antònia Tugores, José Javier Ramasco and Pere Colet.

The researchers have downloaded tweets geolocated at the area of Catalonia and has represented them on a map. Tweets are downloaded without any a priory filtering on the basis of hashtags or keywords. The data has no post-processing.

They have also collected the same data on the previous day to establish a baseline for comparison. In this sense it is interesting to note that the tweets per hour in the area of Catalonia has doubled going from about 1000 on the previous day to above 2000 today afternoon. Significantly, most of this increase occurs in Barcelona where it has gone from 500 to 1500.

Hourly maps show how tweets become concentrated around the avenues selected for the demonstration even an hour before the official starting time (5:14 pm).

Geolocated tweets sent today, September 11, from 2pm to 4pm.

Geolocated tweets sent today, September 11, from 4pm to 6pm.

Geolocated tweets sent yesterday, September 10, from 2pm to 4pm.

Geolocated tweets sent yesterday, September 10, from 4pm to 6pm.

Geolocated tweets timelapse, September 11.

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Spanish National Research Council Universitat de les Illes Balears