When internet users took the power on commercial, professional and institutional websites, the web 2.0 revolution was proclaimed: the mass of texts published by unknown persons exceeded official content. The web began to function following a bottom-up scheme because an infinite number of people had increasingly easy access to the exchange of opinions and ideas; commonplace opinion or points of view began prevailing over officially established knowledge.

Today, conversations held on web tend to interconnect. Local quarrels, public debates, and local watchdogs are increasingly interdependent because some of their actors participate, or "speak" in several conversations and connect — by creating computing links and conveying semantic links — different levels of speech, ideas and exchanges.

How to put to use this huge database lacking in classification, clearly identified authors or precise markers? A first generation of study tools exists, which measure a message’s “buzz”, web traffic or the number of blogs addressing a particular debate. But these tools fail to address several unresolved questions: Who speaks? To whom? To say what? From where do they speak?

We can study these conversations with our Rézodience analysis tool, which indicates not only which authors but also which ideas are the most influential, geographically locates debates or current opinions and highlights the interconnection of any number of exchanges. Rézodience works by scanning message content (i.e. comments or blog posts) as much as by tracing the computing links that connect such content. This tool can elucidate, for example, how a controversy, a brand or a debate is discussed throughout several countries, cultures or populations.

One of Rézodience’s possible applications is tracing the development of specific mentalities and discourses. For example, one could study popular opinion in European countries by detecting the rising ideas that create consensus and their local variations. One would be able to listen to “real people” express themselves directly, not through the filters of a poll or the media. This is food for thought.

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