Tracking Leaders' Trips on Twitter

Twitter account of Kenya's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Where do political leaders travel and what can we learn from these trips?

Project is Not Currently Available

This project has reached full capacity for the current term. Please check back next semester for updates.

Project description

Where do political leaders travel and what can we learn from these trips? Individuals follow their interests when they make their travel plans: nature-loving people prefer national parks, while culture-loving people opt for museums. Therefore, we can learn something about individuals by examining their travel itineraries. Political leaders' trips also reveal important information, but in this case we learn about political, economic and other priorities for their governments. The goal of this research project is to collect political travel information from Twitter, which can then be used to analyze countries' priorities in foreign affairs.

Project outcome

The data will be used to create a poster as the initial outcome and write a research manuscript as the main outcome. The student will directly involved in collecting data, creating the poster, and drafting the data section of the manuscript.

Project details

Timing, eligibility and other details
Length of commitment Less than a semester (0-2 months) 
Start time Summer (May/June of 2021)
In-person, remote, or hybrid? Hybrid Project
Level of collaboration Individual student project
Benefits Research experience
Who is eligible All undergraduate students ; Should have some proficiency in web scraping  (especially Twitter scraping)

Project mentor

Elena McClean

Associate Professor

Political Science

Phone: (716) 645-8444

Email: elenamcl@buffalo.edu

Start the project

  1. Email the project mentor using the contact information above to express your interest and get approval to work on the project. (Here are helpful tips on how to contact a project mentor.)
  2. After you receive approval from the mentor to start this project, click the button to start the digital badge. (Learn more about ELN's digital badge options.) 

Preparation activities

The specific preparation activities for this project will be customized through discussions between you and your project mentor. Please be sure to ask them for the instructions to complete the required preparation activities.

Keywords

Political Science