A.) How do the social media networks created by influencers interact with those same influencers, and how does the information being presented by both parties influence the other?

B.) Most of the data here can be pulled from twitter, which I think sources more than enough examples of the influencer-to-community interactions that are necessary to study this question. Individual privacy is a concern here, but if the research sticks to strictly public interactions and trending keywords, the anonymity of all subjects, sans the influencers themselves, can be maintained.

C.) I believe that there is a wide spectrum of audiences that could benefit from a visual representation of these networks. Not only could it help influential community members to visualize their outreach, but it could possibly lend itself to allowing members of communities with misinformation problems to self-reflect on the implicit biases within their echo chambers. Aside from that, this could be useful information for academics in the media studies field.

D.) The MIT Election Lab, where I spent the summer as a research assistant, has done a study on twitter responses to republican figureheads. They looked at how the engagement levels varied between personnel, and how current events, trending conversations, and general publicity impacted the negativity seen by these politicians. I think there is a lot of good practices to look at here involving the collecting and use of twitter data, and how it applies to active engagement with political actors.

E.) I think I possess most of the data collection skills needed to complete this, but the biggest challenge here would be learning how to create a map of the networks. I have some experience in basic graphical data representation, but still need to gain some skills in the design and execution of creating this hypothetical map.