Dr Ning Wang

Profile

Ning Wang works as Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute on the project - "Leaders and Followers in Online Activism". His work involves in the collection and analysis of a big dataset tracking patterns of communication in online social networks. His research examines which factors influence the success or failure political and policy-oriented mobilizations (such as e-petitions or organized protests) - which have risen to public awareness with events like Arab Spring and the worldwide Occupy movement. His work is important for public understanding of the dynamics of new forms of political action that are being enabled by the Internet.

Before starting to work at the OII, he was a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and worked on the Social-based Forwarding Algorithm. He was involved in research to analyse a large number of real-world data on social networks to optimize community structure. He was responsible to develop novel social-based forwarding modules based on social structure for multi-point dissemination.

Ning earned his PhD in Mobile Computing from the University of Limerick Ireland. He was the recipient of Research Scholarship award from Science Foundation of Ireland. He was also award an honor of Outstanding Achievement of Research Student from the Chinese Scholarship Council.

His research interests lie in the broad area of social networks, sentiment analysis, cloud computing, mobile/ubiquitous computing, and mobile applications (Android/iOS), etc.

Research interests

social networks, sentiment analysis, cloud computing, mobile / ubiquitous computing, mobile applications

Positions held at the OII

• Researcher, April 2012 -

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Research

Current projects

• Open Data and Civic Engagement: Mechanisms for the Promotion of Political Participation

  January 2013 -

  How effective are open data initiatives in encouraging civic engagement in policy-relevant domains?

• Using Twitter to Map and Measure Online Cultural Diffusion

  October 2011 -

  This project is using Twitter data to comprehensively uncover where Internet content is being created; whether the amount of content created in different places is changing over time; and how content moves across time and space in the Social Web.

Past projects

• Leaders and Followers in Online Activism

  January - December 2012

  Where do political and policy-oriented mobilizations (such as e-petitions or organized protests) start and how are they sustained? What affects the propensity of people to join a mobilization, and hence, the mobilization's success?

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Publications

• Working papers

Working papers

• Gonzalez-Bailon, S., Wang, N., Rivero, A., Borge-Holthoefer, J., and Moreno, Y. (2012) Assessing the Bias in Communication Networks Sampled from Twitter. Working Paper.

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