Repository for collaborators on 'Identifying Online Communities', coursolve need 203

(Copied from the need specification)

Northamptonshire County Council is interested in finding out about the communities that exist within its county boundaries. We are seeing community in two ways, firstly (a) physical communities (ie centres of populations like villages, towns or streets), and (b) active communities of interest (eg people who are interested in fishing, theatre) that exist within the county boundaries.

We are particularly interested in measuring “social capital”, ie.. the extent to which communities exist as hubs of activities, with connected members and active conversations and transactions between them. Assessing social capital enables us to evaluate the “health” of communities, as connected and active communities with high social value have positive impacts on citizens.

It is difficult to measure social capital however. One way we think we might do this is to use social media such as twitter, instagram and facebook as a tool to assess community activity in real time.

Can your members propose solutions for:

How we could track and measure community activity within Northamptonshire County Council boundaries by monitoring social media?

What tools and methodologies would be used? Is there a way we could do this ourselves cheaply or for free?

What insight could be gained from these activities? What questions could we answer by carrying out this work?