R/Create.activity.twitter.R

In vosonSML: Collecting Social Media Data and Generating Networks for Analysis

#' @title Create twitter activity network
#'
#' @description Creates a twitter activity network from collected tweets. Nodes are tweets and directed edges represent
#'   the relationship of tweets to one another. For example, there is a directed edge from a quote tweet towards the
#'   tweet that was quoted. Stand-alone tweets that are not replies, retweets or quote tweets have no relation to others
#'   and will be isolates.
#'
#' @param datasource Collected social media data with \code{"datasource"} and \code{"twitter"} class names.
#' @param type Character string. Type of network to be created, set to \code{"activity"}.
#' @param rmEdgeTypes Character vector. List of tweet edge types to remove from network. Options are \code{"tweet"},
#'   \code{"retweet"}, \code{"reply"} and \code{"quote"}. Default is \code{NULL}.
#' @param verbose Logical. Output additional information. Default is \code{FALSE}.
#' @param ... Additional parameters passed to function. Not used in this method.
#'
#' @return Network as a named list of two dataframes containing \code{$nodes} and \code{$edges}.
#'
#' @examples
#' \dontrun{
#' # create a twitter activity network with retweets removed
#' activity_net <- twitter_data |>
#'   Create("activity", rmEdgeTypes = c("retweet"))
#'
#' # network nodes and edges
#' names(activity_net)
#' # "nodes", "edges"
#' names(activity_net$nodes)
#' # "status_id", "author_id", "author_screen_name", "created_at"
#' names(activity_net$edges)
#' # "from", "to", "user_id", "screen_name", "created_at", "edge_type"
#' }
#'
#' @export
Create.activity.twitter <-
  function(datasource,
           type,
           rmEdgeTypes = NULL,
           verbose = FALSE,
           ...) {

    msg("Generating twitter activity network...\n")

    datasource <- datasource$tweets

    df_stats <-
      network_stats(NULL, "collected tweets", nrow(datasource))

    # select data columns
    datasource <- datasource |>
      dplyr::select(
        dplyr::ends_with("status_id"),
        dplyr::ends_with("user_id"),
        dplyr::ends_with("screen_name"),
        dplyr::starts_with("is_"),
        dplyr::ends_with("created_at")
      )

    # classify edges
    edges <- datasource |>
      dplyr::mutate(
        type = data.table::fcase(
          .data$is_retweet == TRUE,
          "retweet",
          (!is.na(.data$reply_to_status_id) &
            .data$is_quote == TRUE),
          "reply,quote",
          (!is.na(.data$reply_to_status_id) &
            .data$is_quote == FALSE),
          "reply",
          (is.na(.data$reply_to_status_id) &
            .data$is_quote == TRUE),
          "quote",
          default = "tweet"
        )
      )

    # remove edge type list
    types <- c("tweet", "retweet", "reply", "quote")
    rmEdgeTypes <-
      rmEdgeTypes[trimws(tolower(rmEdgeTypes)) %in% types]

    if (length(rmEdgeTypes)) {
      msg(paste0("Removing edge types: ",
                 paste0(rmEdgeTypes, collapse = ", "),
                 "\n"))
    }

    edges <- edges |>
      tidyr::separate_rows(type, sep = ",", convert = FALSE) |>
      dplyr::filter(!(.data$type %in% rmEdgeTypes))

    # edge stats
    edge_stats <-
      edges |>
      dplyr::group_by(.data$type) |>
      dplyr::tally() |>
      dplyr::arrange(dplyr::desc(.data$type))

    for (row in 1:nrow(edge_stats)) {
      df_stats <-
        network_stats(df_stats, edge_stats[row, "type"], edge_stats[row, "n"], TRUE)
    }

    # reply to created_at and text not in data
    edges <- edges |>
      dplyr::mutate(
        to = data.table::fcase(
          .data$type == "tweet",
          .data$status_id,
          .data$type == "retweet",
          .data$retweet_status_id,
          .data$type == "quote",
          .data$quoted_status_id,
          .data$type == "reply",
          .data$reply_to_status_id,
          default = NA_character_
        ),
        to_user_id = data.table::fcase(
          .data$type == "tweet",
          .data$user_id,
          .data$type == "retweet",
          .data$retweet_user_id,
          .data$type == "quote",
          .data$quoted_user_id,
          .data$type == "reply",
          .data$reply_to_user_id,
          default = NA_character_
        ),
        to_screen_name = data.table::fcase(
          .data$type == "tweet",
          .data$screen_name,
          .data$type == "retweet",
          .data$retweet_screen_name,
          .data$type == "quote",
          .data$quoted_screen_name,
          .data$type == "reply",
          .data$reply_to_screen_name,
          default = NA_character_
        ),
        to_created_at = data.table::fcase(
          .data$type == "tweet",
          .data$created_at,
          .data$type == "retweet",
          .data$retweet_created_at,
          .data$type == "quote",
          .data$quoted_created_at
        )
      )

    nodes <- dplyr::bind_rows(
      edges |> dplyr::select(.data$status_id,
        author_id = .data$user_id,
        author_screen_name = .data$screen_name,
        .data$created_at
      ),
      edges |> dplyr::select(
        status_id = .data$to,
        author_id = .data$to_user_id,
        author_screen_name = .data$to_screen_name,
        created_at = .data$to_created_at
      )
    ) |>
      dplyr::arrange(.data$status_id, .data$created_at) |>
      dplyr::distinct(.data$status_id, .keep_all = TRUE)

    edges <- edges |>
      dplyr::select(
        from = .data$status_id,
        .data$to,
        .data$user_id,
        .data$screen_name,
        .data$created_at,
        edge_type = .data$type
      )

    df_stats <- network_stats(df_stats, "nodes", nrow(nodes))
    df_stats <- network_stats(df_stats, "edges", nrow(edges))
    msg(network_stats(df_stats, print = TRUE))

    net <- list("nodes" = nodes, "edges" = edges)
    class(net) <- append(c("network", "activity", "twitter"), class(net))
    msg("Done.\n")

    net
  }