Social media research issues
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This document discusses key issues researchers face when conducting social science research using social media data. It addresses questions around appropriate quantitative and qualitative methods for analyzing different social media like Facebook and YouTube. It also discusses ethical issues around permission, anonymity, and credibility of social media data. Researchers must determine the best methods for new data sources while addressing validity, generalizability, and how well existing human research paradigms apply to publicly available online data.
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Social media research issues
- 1. Information Studies Social media and social science research: What are the key issues researchers face? Mike Thelwall Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group University of Wolverhampton, UK
- 2. 1a. Quant: Exploiting Big Data Social media can generate big data relevant to social science research Can new types of big data methods give new insights into social media? E.g., webometrics Can old methods from existing fields be re- purposed for social media? E.g., variants of social network analysis for social network sites? E.g., sentiment analysis for social media texts?
- 3. #oscars % matching posts Proportion of tweets mentioning the Oscars 9 Feb 2010 Date and time 9 Mar 2010 Av. +ve sentime Subj. Sentiment strength Just subj. Increase in –ve sentiment strength Av. -ve sentime Just subj. 9 Feb 2010 Date and time 9 Mar 2010
- 4. Big Data transformation example: Large networks can sometimes be produced and drawn with 30 minute and computer software rather than taking a small research project
- 5. 1b. Identifying appropriate qualitative research methods What is the best way to investigate Facebook? YouTube? Can existing methods be repurposed? e.g., virtual ethnography, blogs-as-diaries Are completely new methods needed?
- 6. 2. Ethics Does the human research paradigm fit the web data – e.g., tweets? Or documentary research? Ask permission from everybody or nobody to research their public web postings? Anonymise or give credit?
- 7. Wolverhampton Riots YouTube video commenters Names removed Ages kept Both could be discovered Red arrows = happy replies, black = angry replies
- 8. Trialog 3. Lack of established methods to analyse new social media Increased uncertainty about methods validity Lack of precedent to justify methods Increased attention on methods validity Weaker data, if web content is analysed Loss of control over sample selection, compared to surveys and interviews Potential lack of face validity E.g., trolls
- 9. Network of links between university web sites 5 per country Asian and European nations But how useful are links as evidence of connections such as collaboration?
- 10. Summary Qualitative and qualitative research issues Which methods to use How should they be used/modified? What are their limitations? What are the key ethical issues that arise with methods? Is there a quality issue with social media research?