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Perspective: Acknowledging Data Work in the Social Media Research Lifecycle
[journal article]
Abstract This perspective article suggests considering the everyday research data management work required to accomplish social media research along different phases in a data lifecycle to inform the ongoing discussion of social media research data’s quality and validity. Our perspective is informed by pract... view more
This perspective article suggests considering the everyday research data management work required to accomplish social media research along different phases in a data lifecycle to inform the ongoing discussion of social media research data’s quality and validity. Our perspective is informed by practical experience of archiving social media data, by results from a series of qualitative interviews with social media researchers, as well as by recent literature in the field. We emphasize how social media researchers are entangled in complexities between social media platform providers, social media users, other actors, as well as legal and ethical frameworks, that all affect their everyday research practices. Research design decisions are made iteratively at different stages, involving many decisions that may potentially impact the quality of research. We show that these decisions are often hidden, but that making them visible allows us to better understand what drives social media research into specific directions. Consequently, we argue that untangling and documenting choices during the research lifecycle, especially when researchers pursue specific approaches and may have actively decided against others (often due to external factors) is necessary and will help to spot and address structural challenges in the social media research ecosystem that go beyond critiques of individual opportunistic approaches to easily accessible data.... view less
Keywords
data; archives; social media; data capture; data preparation; data storage; data access; data quality; methodology
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Information and Documentation, Libraries, Archives
Free Keywords
Big Data; data archiving; data lifecycle; digital trace data; epistemology; research data management; social media research
Document language
English
Publication Year
2020
Journal
Frontiers in Big Data, 3 (2020)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2020.509954
ISSN
2624-909X
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed