social media research methods
DESCRIPTION
Presentation given at advanced course "Uses and effects of social media" (by Merja Mahrt) at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. 26.11.2013TRANSCRIPT
Social Media Research Methods. New Approaches and Open Challenges
Dr. Katrin Weller
[email protected], @kwelle, http://katrinweller.net
Presentation at Advanced Course “Uses and effects of social media”
HHU Düsseldorf 26.11.2013
Background
Facebook vs. Twitter
Scopus (26.11.2013) (TITLE-ABS-KEY(Twitter) AND PUBYEAR > 2006) (TITLE-ABS-KEY(Facebook) AND PUBYEAR > 2004)
4136 4975
1274
Facebook AND Twitter
2007-2013
Scopus: Facebook 4975
Scopus: Twitter 4136
scopus: Facebook AND Twitter 1274
Scopus: TITLE-ABS-KEY(facebook), searched on 26.11.2013
Scopus: TITLE-ABS-KEY(twitter) AND PUBYEAR > 2006 searched on 26.11.2013
Researching Social Media?
What is being studied?
• User groups • Events • Audiences • Practices • Information flow • Influence • Opinions and sentiments • Networks • Interactions • …
How to study social media?
„information disclosure and privacy on Facebook“
„Election prediction with Twitter
data“
Social Media Data?
Social Media Data
• Texts
• Images
• Videos
• Mixed formats
• Connections I (friends, followers)
• Connections II (links/URLs)
• Connections/Actions (likes, favs, comments, downloads)
Example: Twitter Data
Example: Twitter Data
Data Collection and Access?
API
Research Methods
Approaches
• Surveys • Experiments • Interviews • Web ethnography
• Content analysis
• Network analysis • Linguistic analyses (eg. sentiment analysis)
Rather rarely used in combination
Content Analysis
• E.g. with MAXQDA, QDAMiner, ATLAS.ti, Qualrus, Nvivo
Network Analysis
• E.g. with R, NodeXL
Sentiment Analysis
• Mainly based on dictionaries such as ANEW
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10902-009-9150-9/fulltext.html
Top 4 Chances
#1
Observing spontaneous interactions and ephemeral
communication
#2
Access to data for a variety of contexts and questions
#3
Rich data: multimedia content plus networks plus
interactions
#4
Interdisciplinary field, option to experiment with new and combined methods
Top 4 Challenges
#1
Lack of theoretical background
#2
data haves, data have-nots
boyd, danah and Kate Crawford. (2012).
“Critical Questions for Big Data”
#3
Representativeness?
#4
Missing standards (on different levels)
Exciting work ahead!
Katrin Weller
@kwelle
http://katrinweller.net
www.gesis.org
References
• Ackland, R. (2013). Web Social Science. Los Angeles et al: SAGE.
• Boyd, D., & Crawford, K. (2012). Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication, & Society, 15(5), 662-679.
• Bruns, A. (2013). Faster than the speed of print: Reconciling ‘big data’ social media analysis and academic scholarship. First Monday 10(18). Available http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4879
• Giglietto, F., Rossi, L., & Bennato, D. (2012). The Open Laboratory: Limits and Possibilities of Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as a Research Data Source. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 30(3-4), 145–159.
• Karpf, D. (2012). Social science research methods in internet time. Information, Communication & Society, 5(15), 639-661.
• Weller, K., Bruns, A., Burgess, J., Mahrt, M., & Puschmann, C. (2014). Twitter and Society. New York et al.: Peter Lang.
• Williams, S. A., Terras, M. M., Warwick, C. (2013). What do people study when they study Twitter? Classifying Twitter related academic papers. Journal of Documentation, 69(3), 384-410.