Description:

Duration: Approximately 60 minutes.

Cost: Free

Watch the webcast in its original format >

It's presidential election season again — and, besides the pageantry and debates, it means that American political views and attitudes are on display in a uniquely American way. In a place where money is speech, and speech is worth money, campaign finance records can provide a valuable insight into the functioning of the American political system.

This webcast presentation will show you how to mine this data.

You will learn:

Techniques of Social Network Analysis (SNA)

Techniques to analyze social-media response to events, or the viral nature of cat videos.

We will combine a little bit of theory and background with a practical analysis exercise using the freshest available data from the Federal Election Commission.

If you are a data scientist, or a data journalist, or just a news junkie who loves his/her data — join us and let's see what makes the campaign finance tick!

Familiarity with Python programming recommended.

About Maksim Tsvetovat

Maksim Tsvetovat is an interdisciplinary scientist, a software engineer, and a jazz musician. He has received his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in the field of Computation, Organizations and Society, concentrating on computational modeling of evolution of social networks, diffusion of information and attitudes, and emergence of collective intelligence. Currently, he teaches social network analysis at George Mason University. He is also a co-founder of DeepMile Networks, a startup company concentrating on mapping influence in social media. Maksim also teaches executive seminars in social network analysis, including "Social Networks for Startups" and "Understanding Social Media for Decisionmakers".