The goal of the project is to better understand the activity in social networks both from a research and from a journalistic perspective by developing an exploration tool of social networks. In addition to this main, application-oriented goal, the project will seek to answer more fundamental questions. We will measure the influence of particular users and communities within social networks, and how these entities proceed to gain influence and increase their audience. We will analyze the evolution over time of different topics to better understand the birth, life and death of news and discussions. We will investigate the relationships between the social network connections, the text of posts through lexicometry and language processing and the controversy of a theme. The complementary expertise in data science, social science and journalism of the project team will be crucial for this project where the technical and social complexity is challenging.