Social Media as Social Science Data

Description

Social media has put mass communication in the hands of normal people on an unprecedented scale, and has also given social scientists the tools necessary to listen to the voices of everyday people around the world. This book gives social scientists the skills necessary to leverage that opportunity, and transform social media's vast stream of information into social science data. The book combines the big data techniques of computer science with social science methodology. Intended as a text for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the social sciences, this book provides a methodological pathway for scholars who want to make use of this new and evolving source of data. It provides a framework for building one's own data collection and analysis infrastructure, a toolkit of content analysis, geographic analysis, and network analysis, and meditations on the ethical implications of social media data.

Steven Lloyd Wilson is an assistant professor of politics at Brandeis University, project manager for the V-Dem Institute, and co-PI of the Digital Society Project. His research focuses on comparative democratization, cyber-security, and the effect of the Internet and social media on authoritarian regimes, particularly in the post-Soviet world.

'This is an excellent new methods book on collecting and analyzing data from social media. This is the new frontier of social science data, and this book gives scholars and students the toolkit for its study.' Staffan I. 2022, Professor and Director of the V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg 'Steven Wilson offers a practical guide to what is arguably the most exciting new species of social science evidence brought by the twenty-first century: the Twitterverse. In addition to being useful, this book is fun! Highly recommended.' John Gerring, Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin, 'Social Media as Social Science Data should be the go-to resource for anyone motivated to produce knowledge using Twitter data. It is clearly written, covers the three main types of analysis available with tweets, and provides useful code samples.' Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of California - Los Angeles