Big Data and Business Intelligence on Twitter and Instagram for digital inclusion

Abstract

Social media can contribute to an inclusive society, but they are also asymmetrical and polarised communication spaces. This requires competent teachers to build critical digital citizenship. The aim of this article is twofold: to present web scraping and text analytics as tools that define teachers' digital competences, and to investigate which posts on Twitter and Instagram are most viral in relation to education, disability and inclusion. A total of 48,991 publications in Spanish and English were analysed, corresponding to the period from 13 October 2021 to 1 May 2022. The 100 most viral posts were selected, and correlations were identified between the sentiment, gender and influence associated with the content, its temporal and geographic space. The results show that economic and political influence groups are the most viral, relegating non-profit organisations or individuals with altruistic outreach to second place; only on international days is this trend reversed. Bots do not interfere to impose messages; it is artificial intelligence algorithms that overshadow vindictive and humanistic content. The most influential people are predominantly male, associated with institutional accounts in the political sphere. It is concluded that Big Data and Business Intelligence tools help teachers to analyse relevant educational and social issues, and to acquire a collective ethic in the face of new educational challenges.