REVEAL aims to advance the necessary technologies for making a higher level analysis of social media possible. The project will enable users to reveal hidden ‘modalities’ such as reputation, influence or credibility of information.
The world of media and communication is currently experiencing enormous disruptions: from one-way communication and word of mouth exchanges, we have moved to bi- or multi directional communication patterns. No longer can a selected few (e.g. media organizations) act as gatekeepers, deciding what is communicated to whom and what not. Individuals now have the opportunity to access information directly from primary sources, through a channel we label e’-word of mouth’, or what we commonly call ‘Social Media’. However, a key problem: It takes a lot of effort to distinguish useful information from the ‘noise’ (e.g. useless or misleading information). This challenge has become the focus of various research efforts. REVEAL aims to discover higher level concepts hidden within information. This is what we aim for: We will reveal much more than bare content. Further than discovering what is being said, we will determine how trustworthy that information is. We will predict contributor impact and how much or to what extent all this affects reputation or influence. The core of our work is to reveal hidden modalities for the benefit of a better understanding and utilization of the Social Media world.
(Copied from website)