The Australian Twittersphere is a longitudinal collection of tweets from a periodically updated list of Twitter accounts that are identified as Australian (i.e., have a stated connection to Australia in the free text fields of the account profile). The Australian Twittersphere is made up of three collections:

• In 2016, the TrISMA project classified approximately 530,000 Twitter accounts as being Australian and began collecting tweets from those accounts. The TrISMA project concluded and tweets ceased being collected in May 2017. This collection is known as the ‘2016’ collection.

• In early 2018, the Digital Observatory was established and continued collecting tweets from the same accounts from approximately March 2018 to December 2018 using a streaming API. This collection is known as the ‘2018’ collection.

• In late 2018, the Digital Observatory developed an additional collector which began collecting tweets from the same accounts. This collection is currently active, and is known as our ‘current’ collection. As of December 2020, the list of accounts in the current collection is periodically updated according to a dictionary of phrases that include/exclude accounts as being Australian.

The following reference outlines how the Australian Twittersphere was originally established (pre-Digital Observatory):

Bruns, Axel, Burgess, Jean, & Highfield, Tim (2014) A 'big data' approach to mapping the Australian twittersphere. In Bode, K & Arthur, P (Eds.) Advancing digital humanities: Research, methods, theories. Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom, pp. 113-129. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/82986/

Further information:

• Description of the contents of the Australian Twittersphere
• Listing at the Australian Digital Observatory

Queries about the Australian Twittersphere, including requests to discuss potential research projects involving Australian Twittersphere data, can be directed to digitalobservatory@qut.edu.au