Journal of Documentation Journal of Documentation What People Study When They Study T umblr: Classifying Tumblr-related Academic Research Journal: Journal of Documentation Manuscript ID JD-08-2016-0101.R1 Manuscript Type: Article Tumblr, Microblogging, Blog, Classification, Social Network Systems, Social Keywords: Network Analysis, Twitter, Content Analysis, Keyword Analysis, Research methods Page 1 of 55 Journal of Documentation 1 2 3 What People Study When They Study Tumblr: Classifying 4 5 6 Tumblr-related Academic Research 7 8 9 10 Structured Abstract 11 Journal of Documentation 12 Purpose 13 14 Since its launch in 2007, research has been carried out on the popular social 15 networking website Tumblr. This paper identifies published Tumblr based research, 16 17 classifies it to understand approaches and methods, and pro ides methodological 18 19 recommendations for others. 20 Design/methodology/approach 21 22 Research regarding Tumblr was identified. Following a re iew of the literature, a 23 24 classification scheme was adapted and applied, to understand research focus. Papers 25 were quantitati ely classified using open coded content analysis of method, subject, 26 27 approach, and topic. 28 29 Findings 30 The majority of published work relating to Tumblr concentrates on conceptual issues, 31 32 followed by aspects of the messages sent. This has e ol ed o er time. Percei ed 33 34 benefits are the platform(s long-form text posts, ability to track tags, and the 35 multimodal nature of the platform. Se ere research limitations are caused by the lack 36 37 of demographic, geo-spatial, and temporal metadata attached to indi idual posts, the 38 39 limited AP,, restricted access to data, and the large amounts of ephemeral posts on the 40 site. 41 42 Research limitations/implications 43 44 This study focuses on Tumblr- the applicability of the approach to other media is not 45 considered. .e focus on published research and conference papers- there will be book 46 47 content which was not found using our method. Tumblr as a platform has falling user 48 49 numbers which may be of concern to researchers. 50 Practical implications 51 52 .e identify practical barriers to research on the Tumblr platform including lack of 53 54 metadata and access to big data, explaining why Tumblr is not as popular as Twitter 55 in academic studies. 56 57 Social implications 58 59 60 1 Journal of Documentation Page 2 of 55 1 2 3 This paper highlights the breadth of topics co ered by social media researchers, which 4 5 allows us to understand popular online platforms. 6 Originality/ alue 7 8 There has not yet been an o erarching study to look at the methods and purpose of 9 10 those who study Tumblr. .e identify Tumblr related research papers from the first 11 Journalappearing in 0uly 2011 until of 0uly 2011.Documentation Our classification deri ed here pro ides a 12 13 framework that can be used to analyse social media research, and in which to position 14 15 Tumblr related work, with recommendations on benefits and limitations of the 16 platform for researchers. 17 18 19 20 Keywords: 21 22 Tumblr, 2icroblogging, 3log, Classification, Social Network Systems, Social 23 24 Network Analysis, Twitter, Content Analysis, 6eyword Analysis, 2ethodology. 25 26 27 28 Article Classification: 29 30 Research Paper 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 2 Page 3 of 55 Journal of Documentation 1 2 3 Introduction 4 5 Since its launch in 2007, the social media website Tumblr 8www.tumblr.com9 has 6 7 become an incredibly popular platform which hosts o er 308.9 million blogs 8 9 containing 137.9 billion entries, claiming a current rate of 41.6 million daily posts 10 8Tumblr 2016b9. ,n 2011, one in ten online adults worldwide used Tumblr 8Duggan 11 Journal of Documentation 12 20119. ,n spite of its popularity, Tumblr has been described as the “forgotten? 13 14 8Anderson 2011, p. 1169 social network when compared to the fellow major platforms 15 Facebook 8www.facebook.com9 and Twitter 8www.twitter.com9, which ha e inspired 16 17 ast amounts of published academic research 8.ilson et al 2012, .illiams et al 18 19 20139. This paper sets out to e aluate and classify the research produced regarding 20 Tumblr that is published in English, using a framework we de eloped to categorise 21 22 Twitter based research outputs 8.illiams et al 20139. Published research on Tumblr 23 24 has expanded in a wide ariety of disciplines, and this paper aims to pro ide an in- 25 depth identification, analysis and classification of the academic literature, identifying 26 27 sixty-one research outputs which ha e been published before 0uly 2011. This paper 28 29 determines research focus on Tumblr, and methodologies applied in the course of 30 academic analysis. .e also in estigate which subject matters and research methods 31 32 ha e risen to prominence, and trace Tumblr(s shift from occupying the periphery of 33 34 research acti ity concerned with social media trends, to its positioning at the centre of 35 a series of academic outputs. 36 37 38 39 Published literature on Tumblr remains ery scarce. 3y compiling and analysing our 40 corpus of sixty-one full academic papers and de ising a classification of the research 41 42 undertaken thus far, this study contributes to the understanding of Tumblr as a 43 44 research subject, and by extension, to the study of social media and microblogging - a 45 ariant of blogging that describes online social network ser ices pro iding a range of 46 47 features to allow users to share, exchange, and interact with short posts and messages 48 49 8Ross et al 20119. .e show that the majority of papers published ha e a conceptual 50 focus- explaining how Tumblr works in when positioned within a specific field of 51 52 interest, closely followed by message-based works which study Tumblr content. Aser 53 54 studies ha e become more popular. There are surprisingly few technological 55 approaches to analysing Tumblr content by automation or scale. .e identify the core 56 57 aspects of Tumblr which ha e pro ed attracti e to researchers 8including long form 58 59 60 3 Journal of Documentation Page 4 of 55 1 2 3 text posts, tagging structures, multimodality, and means for ethnographic research9, 4 5 and the features which are problematic when undertaking research on the platform 6 8including processing abandoned blogs, and the ast amount of content 8which can be 7 8 inconsistent and ephemeral9, the lack of access to large-scale data from the site, and 9 10 the recent fall in Tumblr(s popularity9. .e identify why there are fewer research 11 Journaloutputs produced regarding of the siteDocumentation compared to its main social media competitors, 12 13 despite its large user base. 14 15 16 This paper therefore pro ides a useful o er iew for future work on Tumblr, and will 17 18 be of alue to researchers wanting to familiarise themsel es with existing literature, 19 20 those wishing to compare other social media research to that carried out on the 21 platform, those wishing to learn more about the affordances of the platform for the 22 23 research community, and those wishing to ha e examples of how the study of social 24 25 media can inform us of current societal trends. 26 27 28 29 Understanding Tumblr 30 31 Tumblr is a rich resource for researchers to exploit. Since its launch in February 2007, 32 it has pro ided a free hosting platform for short blogs with a minimal set up. Tumblr 33 34 blogs ha e always been “unlocked? by default, making posts isible to any online 35 36 user in possession of a free account. Anlike the limited 140 character length text posts 37 which ha e come to define the microblogging site Twitter, Tumblr most closely 38 39 resembles a traditional blogging platform in its support for long form text posts, allowing 40 i 41 for text entries 8its normal posting format9 of arying character lengths . ,t also hosts 42 six other specially formatted post types- images 8categorised as “photo?9B ideosB 43 44 website linksB chat transcriptsB quotesB and audio files. Tumblr enables its users to 45 46 interact with others through the creation of follower networks, leading to the growth 47 of innumerable irtual communities. There are se eral different le els of interaction 48 49 at play, as users can send each other special “Fan 2ail? messages and ask questions. 50 51 Asers can follow other Tumblr blogs, track subjects based on tags, and “reblog? and 52 “like? other users( content to show appreciation or participate in con ersations. 53 54 Reblogging allows posts to appear on user(s own Tumblr page, where they may 55 56 choose to add their own comments or tagsB these operate in a similar method to 57 hashtags on Twitter 8Ross et al 20119. Ap to thirty tags can be applied to each post, and 58 59 60 4 Page 5 of 55 Journal of Documentation 1 2 3 users can conduct searches based on the first twenty 8Anwrapping Tumblr 20119. All the 4 5 posts created or reblogged by a user, and all the posts made by the users they are 6 following, are also displayed internally on the “dashboard? page- a continually 7 8 updating stream of content representing each Tumblr user(s tastes.