[Air-L] [apsa_itp] Best tools for comparing Facebook Groups, identifying similar friends/like connections by elected officials?

Sun Dec 4 12:12:28 PST 2016

Hi Steven,

I wrote a Facebook data collection script for Python that should work 
with any public page, including Groups. It's mostly for pulling posts 
and comments, which would give you a good sense of which ones are most 
active and help you track activity over time, but one could probably 
modify it to pull some of the other available metadata. I updated it a 
few months ago to pull the new post-Like reactions ("Wow," "Haha," 
"Angry" etc.) in case you're interested in those.

*https://github.com/dfreelon/fb_scrape_public*

~DEEN

On 12/4/2016 2:30 PM, Steven Clift wrote:
> Related to the #2 event below, we are identifying existing "online 
> town hall" Facebook Groups that we would like to compare across cities 
> - post, members, sharing from, settings, keywords in their 
> descriptions, etc. Understanding which ones work best will help us 
> shape our template and training for the two dozen volunteers who have 
> step up to say they want to do their community.
>
> Any suggestions on existing tools?
>
> Also, it would be very helpful to be able to plug in the X personal 
> profiles of local elected officials and generate a list of people who 
> are friends with the most elected officials as well pages these 
> elected officials Like in common on Facebook.
>
> Any suggestions on tools? Can you do this with the Facebook API? Any 
> limitations?
>
> Thanks,
> Steven Clift
> E-Democracy.org
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 3:28 PM, Steven Clift <slc at publicus.net 
> <mailto:slc at publicus.net>> wrote:
>
>     Thanks to our awesome digital democracy supporters out there, I am
>     able to host three engaging small gatherings next Tuesday during a
>     quick trip to DC.
>
>     Please share this with your DC-area contacts interested in all things
>     civic tech, open government, civic engagement and more. Come on along.
>
>      All Events - Tuesday Dec 6, 2016:
>
>     ** Digitally Networking Democracy Builders Globally? A Conversation
>
>          9:30 - 11 AM
>          Info/RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/1825880037625153/
>     <https://www.facebook.com/events/1825880037625153/>
>          Hosted at NDI - National Democratic Institute
>
>
>     ** Local-up? Digital Bridges for American Communities Brown Bag
>
>          12 Noon - 2 PM
>          Info/RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/1681899672124715/
>     <https://www.facebook.com/events/1681899672124715/>
>          Lake Research Partners, 1101 17th St, NW Suite 301
>
>
>     ** OpenGov Civic Tech Facebook Group Happy Hour
>
>          5 - 8:00 PM
>          Info/RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/1194660773961648/
>     <https://www.facebook.com/events/1194660773961648/>
>          James Hoban Bar, Dupont Circle
>
>
>     Each link above has extended details. In summary:
>
>     1. The morning gathering is about sharing the secret sauce from 24 x 7
>     "e" knowledge sharing within the niche open gov/civic tech crowd with
>     the broader and global democracy/civic engagement community that is so
>     poorly e-networked in comparison. The geeks are getting it right, but
>     how can we extend that?
>
>     2. The brown bag lunch (aka bring a sandwich) session is a strategic
>     conversation about using social media post-election in the US to
>     connect people across the partisan divide with a strategic local-up
>     twist. Over a dozen volunteers responded to my post-election call -
>     http://po.st/localupfacebook - to create new city-wide civic life
>     Facebook Groups adapting the long-time E-Democracy online town hall
>     model - http://e-democracy.org/if - to a new platform. What should we
>     do next? How do we support these volunteers and position these local
>     online town halls to spread across hundreds of cities? Contact me to
>     volunteer for your city: clift at e-democracy.org
>     <mailto:clift at e-democracy.org>  Put "Local Facebook
>     Group - Your City" in the subject. We must counter the "virtual civil
>     war" - https://medium.com/@democracy -  now before it destroys our
>     democracies and this is one small way I hope to be part of the
>     solution with others. If we can't better connect via social media on
>     public issues starting locally with more civility, then we are
>     absolutely screwed as a nation on national issues in the digital era.
>
>     3. Social time. For those DC area Open Government and Civic Technology
>     Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup
>     <https://www.facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup> -
>     members NOT in Paris at the OGP Summit, let's just have some french
>     fries and French wine instead. :-)  The Facebook Group is approaching
>     6400 members from well over half the countries in the world. If you
>     have ideas on who might fund a strategic outreach campaign to bring it
>     to 16,000 members, let me know. This group delivers quality knowledge
>     exchange every day. Let's drink to that!
>
>     Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
>     clift at e-democracy.org <mailto:clift at e-democracy.org>  - +1 612 234
>     7072 <tel:%28612%29%20234-7072>
>        @democracy  - http://linkedin.com/in/netclift
>     <http://linkedin.com/in/netclift>
>     http://1radionews.com - My radio app
>
>
>
>
> -
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-- 
Deen Freelon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Communication, American University
Office: McKinley 325
freelon at american.edu | http://dfreelon.org | @dfreelon 
<https://twitter.com/dfreelon>
New report: Beyond the Hashtags: #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the 
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