Tracking Influencers aims to help journalists investigate influencers on social platforms on a greater scale using AI technologies and developing a replicable methodology. The initial focus of the project is on Instagram and specifically on creating a system to flag those users who are promoting brands or services without complying with the guidelines that mandate disclosure of all commercial relationships.
This project is part of the 2022 JournalismAI Fellowship Programme. The Fellowship brought together 46 journalists and technologists from across the world to collaboratively explore innovative solutions to improve journalism via the use of AI technologies. You can explore all the Fellowship projects at this link.
The project was developed as a collaboration between Sky News, Infobae and Il Sole 24 Ore.
JournalismAI is a project of Polis – the journalism think-tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science – and it’s sponsored by the Google News Initiative. If you want to know more about the Fellowship and the other JournalismAI activities, sign up for the newsletter or get in touch with the team via [email protected].
The report of this adventure: the challenges faced, the goals achieved and those still to be implemented, the mistakes made and the advices to avoid repeating them.
The use of the research software provided in this release is done at your own discretion and risk and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from such activities. You are solely responsible for adequate protection and backup of the data and equipment used in connection with research software.
The research software may contain links to external websites that are not provided or maintained by it and does not guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any information on these external websites.
You are solely responsible for determining the appropriateness of using and distributing the research software and you assume all risks associated with its use.
The content management system used to store the data, with the content-types and the relationships implemented.
Chrome extension to save and download the query made on social media platform Tensor Social locally in a json format.
App to interact with Tensor Social API
Python script to import influencers data from Tensor Social to database via Strapi CMS
Service collects data associated with users' accounts on Instagram
Python script to import scraped posts to the database
Script to import Instagram brands' profiles to the database
Python and R scripts to conduct the exploratory data analysis for profiles and captions.
The project documentation app made in Next.js
Python scraping library tests to collect data about Instagram influencers
For questions, notices or collaborations, please write us at [email protected]