scholarly journals Navigating Big Data dilemmas: Feminist holistic reflexivity in social media research

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395171880773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Cooky ◽  
Jasmine R Linabary ◽  
Danielle J Corple
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Institutional Review Boards ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Institutional Review ◽  
Slow Adaptation ◽  
Private Research ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research ◽  
Media Data

Social media offers an attractive site for Big Data research. Access to big social media data, however, is controlled by companies that privilege corporate, governmental, and private research firms. Additionally, Institutional Review Boards’ regulative practices and slow adaptation to emerging ethical dilemmas in online contexts creates challenges for Big Data researchers. We examine these challenges in the context of a feminist qualitative Big Data analysis of the hashtag event #WhyIStayed. We argue power, context, and subjugated knowledges must each be central considerations in conducting Big Data social media research. In doing so, this paper offers a feminist practice of holistic reflexivity in order to help social media researchers navigate and negotiate this terrain.

scholarly journals How scientists can take the lead in establishing ethical practices for social media research

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherry Pagoto ◽  
Camille Nebeker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Research Misconduct ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethical Practices ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research ◽  
Media Data

Abstract Social media use has become ubiquitous in the United States, providing unprecedented opportunities for research. However, the rapidly evolving research landscape has far outpaced federal regulations for the protection of human subjects. Recent highly publicized scandals have raised legitimate concerns in the media about how social media data are being used. These circumstances combined with the absence of ethical standards puts even the best intentioned scientists at risk of possible research misconduct. The scientific community may need to lead the charge in insuring the ethical use of social media data in scientific research. We propose 6 steps the scientific community can take to lead this charge. We underscore the important role of funding agencies and universities to create the necessary ethics infrastructure to allow social media research to flourish in a way that is pro-technology, pro-science, and most importantly, pro-humanity.

Accepting the challenges of social media research

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Weller
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Publication Output ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
General Audience ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research ◽  
Media Data

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new viewpoint series, Monitoring the Media: Spotlight on Social Media Research, by providing an overview of the key challenges in social media research and some current initiatives in addressing them. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers publication output from disciplines dealing with social media studies and summarises the key challenges as discussed in the broader research community. Findings – The paper suggests that challenges originate both from the interdisciplinary nature of social media research and from the ever-changing research landscape. It concludes that, whilst the community is addressing some challenges, others require more attention. Originality/value – The paper summarises key challenges of social media and will be of interest to researchers in different disciplines, as well as a general audience, wanting to learn about how social media data are used for research.

scholarly journals Sharing selves: Developing an ethical framework for curating social media data

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Mannheimer ◽  
Elizabeth A. Hull
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Digital Repository ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research ◽  
Media Data

Open sharing of social media data raises new ethical questions that researchers, repositories and data curators must confront, with little existing guidance available. In this paper, the authors draw upon their experiences in their multiple roles as data curators, academic librarians, and researchers to propose the STEP framework for curating and sharing social media data. The framework is intended to be used by data curators facilitating open publication of social media data. Two case studies from the Dryad Digital Repository serve to demonstrate implementation of the STEP framework. The STEP framework can serve as one important ‘step’ along the path to achieving safe, ethical, and reproducible social media research practice.

scholarly journals Digital Trespass: Ethical and Terms-of-Use Violations by Researchers Accessing Data From an Online Patient Community (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Chiauzzi ◽  
Paul Wicks
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Media Ethics ◽  
Computer Data ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Social Media Research ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Review Boards

UNSTRUCTURED With the expansion and popularity of research on websites such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been increasing concern about investigator conduct and social media ethics. The availability of large data sets has attracted researchers who are not traditionally associated with health data and its associated ethical considerations, such as computer and data scientists. Reliance on oversight by ethics review boards is inadequate and, due to the public availability of social media data, there is often confusion between public and private spaces. In addition, social media participants and researchers may pay little attention to traditional terms of use. In this paper, we review four cases involving ethical and terms-of-use violations by researchers seeking to conduct social media studies in an online patient research network. These violations involved unauthorized scraping of social media data, entry of false information, misrepresentation of researcher identities of participants on forums, lack of ethical approval and informed consent, use of member quotations, and presentation of findings at conferences and in journals without verifying accurate potential biases and limitations of the data. The correction of these ethical lapses often involves much effort in detecting and responding to violators, addressing these lapses with members of an online community, and correcting inaccuracies in the literature (including retraction of publications and conference presentations). Despite these corrective actions, we do not regard these episodes solely as violations. Instead, they represent broader ethical issues that may arise from potential sources of confusion, misinformation, inadequacies in applying traditional informed consent procedures to social media research, and differences in ethics training and scientific methodology across research disciplines. Social media research stakeholders need to assure participants that their studies will not compromise anonymity or lead to harmful outcomes while preserving the societal value of their health-related studies. Based on our experience and published recommendations by social media researchers, we offer potential directions for future prevention-oriented measures that can be applied by data producers, computer/data scientists, institutional review boards, research ethics committees, and publishers.

scholarly journals Epistemology, methods and theories of communication in the Big Data Era: a critical panorama of social media research

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Ana Thereza Nogueira Soares
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Evolution Of Technology ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Media Data

This paper proposes a critical reflection on the epistemological, methodological and theoretical implications of the researches based on Big Data – especially on social media data – for the scientific field of communication. From an epistemological point of view, it reveals the unsustainability of analytical models based on static frameworks of communication, claiming that the sociasl processes that emerge with the influence of the internet are unequivocally presented in fluid and contingent formats. In this context, it highlights that the evolution of technology itself has the potential to boost the construction of data collection and analysis tools capable of grasping the communication movements, justifying the need for alignment between ontology, epistemology and methodology in scientific research. The text, also, poses questions about communication theory and its concepts. It is believed that the relevance acquired by data in recent years should not point to a domain of the empirical over the theoretical. Effectively, the strengthening of the communication science demands precision and care with the use of terms, models and theoretical references historically consolidated in the problematization and explanation of the contemporary.

Citizens, Elites, and Social Media Methodological Challenges and Opportunities in the Study of Persuasion and Mobilization

2019 ◽  
pp. 1036-1058
Author(s):  
Philip Habel ◽  
Yannis Theocharis
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Media Data

In the last decade, big data, and social media in particular, have seen increased popularity among citizens, organizations, politicians, and other elites—which in turn has created new and promising avenues for scholars studying long-standing questions of communication flows and influence. Studies of social media play a prominent role in our evolving understanding of the supply and demand sides of the political process, including the novel strategies adopted by elites to persuade and mobilize publics, as well as the ways in which citizens react, interact with elites and others, and utilize platforms to persuade audiences. While recognizing some challenges, this chapter speaks to the myriad of opportunities that social media data afford for evaluating questions of mobilization and persuasion, ultimately bringing us closer to a more complete understanding Lasswell’s (1948) famous maxim: “who, says what, in which channel, to whom, [and] with what effect.”

A Survey of Social Media, Big Data, Data Mining, and Analytics

2018 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 1850003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Oliverio
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Family Businesses ◽  
Large Percentage ◽  
Specific Behavior ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Media Applications ◽  
Media Data

Big Data is a very popular term today. Everywhere you turn companies and organizations are talking about their Big Data solutions and Analytic applications. The source of the data used in these applications varies. However, one type of data is of great interest to most organizations, Social Media Data. Social Media applications are used by a large percentage of the world’s population. The ability to instantly connect and reach other people and companies over distributed distances is an important part of today’s society. Social Media applications allow users to share comments, opinions, ideas, and media with friends, family, businesses, and organizations. The data contained in these comments, ideas, and media are valuable to many types of organizations. Through Data Mining and Analysis, it is possible to predict specific behavior in users of the applications. Currently, several technologies aid in collecting, analyzing, and displaying this data. These technologies allow users to apply this data to solve different problems, in different organizations, including the finance, medicine, environmental, education, and advertising industries. This paper aims to highlight the current technologies used in Data Mining and Analyzing Social Media data, the industries using this data, as well as the future of this field.

scholarly journals Making Inferences Using Incidentally Collected Data

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Mellon
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
The Internet ◽  
User Interactions ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Broad Definition ◽  
User Data ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Media Data

This chapter discusses the use of large quantities of incidentallycollected data (ICD) to make inferences about politics. This type of datais sometimes referred to as “big data” but I avoid this term because of itsconflicting definitions (Monroe, 2012; Ward & Barker, 2013). ICD is datathat was created or collected primarily for a purpose other than analysis.Within this broad definition, this chapter focuses particularly on datagenerated through user interactions with websites. While ICD has beenaround for at least half a century, the Internet greatly expanded theavailability and reduced the cost of ICD. Examples of ICD include data onInternet searches, social media data, and user data from civic platforms.This chapter briefly explains some sources and uses of ICD and thendiscusses some of the potential issues of analysis and interpretation thatarise when using ICD, including the different approaches to inference thatresearchers can use.

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