Social media is becoming increasingly attractive for users. It is a fast way to communicate ideas and a key source of information. It is therefore one of the most influential mediums of communication of our time and an important area for audience research. The growth of social media invites many new questions such as: How can we analyze social media? Can we use traditional audience research methods and apply them to online content? Which new research strategies have been developed? Which ethical research issues and controversies do we have to pay attention to? This book focuses on research strategies and methods for analyzing social media and will be of interest to researchers and practitioners using social media, as well as those wanting to keep up to date with the subject. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Technology in Human Services.

With coverage of the entire research process in social media, data collection and analysis on specific platforms, and innovative developments in the field, this handbook is the ultimate resource for those looking to tackle the challenges that come with doing research in this sphere.

Analyzing the Social Web provides a framework for the analysis of public data currently available and being generated by social networks and social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. Access and analysis of this public data about people and their connections to one another allows for new applications of traditional social network analysis techniques that let us identify things like who are the most important or influential people in a network, how things will spread through the network, and the nature of peoples' relationships. Analyzing the Social Web introduces you to these techniques, shows you their application to many different types of social media, and discusses how social media can be used as a tool for interacting with the online public. - Presents interactive social applications on the web, and the types of analysis that are currently conducted in the study of social media - Covers the basics of network structures for beginners, including measuring methods for describing nodes, edges, and parts of the network - Discusses the major categories of social media applications or phenomena and shows how the techniques presented can be applied to analyze and understand the underlying data - Provides an introduction to information visualization, particularly network visualization techniques, and methods for using them to identify interesting features in a network, generate hypotheses for analysis, and recognize patterns of behavior - Includes a supporting website with lecture slides, exercises, and downloadable social network data sets that can be used can be used to apply the techniques presented in the book

Social Network Analysis: Methods and Examples by Song Yang, Franziska B. Keller, and Lu Zheng prepares social science students to conduct their own social network analysis (SNA) by covering basic methodological tools along with illustrative examples from various fields. This innovative book takes a conceptual rather than a mathematical approach as it discusses the connection between what SNA methods have to offer and how those methods are used in research design, data collection, and analysis. Four substantive applications chapters provide examples from politics, work and organizations, mental and physical health, and crime and terrorism studies.

SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS As social media dominates our lives in increasing intensity, the need for developers to understand the theory and applications is ongoing as well. This book serves that purpose. Social network analysis is the solicitation of network science on social networks, and social occurrences are denoted and premeditated by data on coinciding pairs as the entities of opinion. The book features: Social network analysis from a computational perspective using python to show the significance of fundamental facets of network theory and the various metrics used to measure the social network. An understanding of network analysis and motivations to model phenomena as networks. Real-world networks established with human-related data frequently display social properties, i.e., patterns in the graph from which human behavioral patterns can be analyzed and extracted. Exemplifies information cascades that spread through an underlying social network to achieve widespread adoption. Network analysis that offers an appreciation method to health systems and services to illustrate, diagnose, and analyze networks in health systems. The social web has developed a significant social and interactive data source that pays exceptional attention to social science and humanities research. The benefits of artificial intelligence enable social media platforms to meet an increasing number of users and yield the biggest marketplace, thus helping social networking analysis distribute better customer understanding and aiding marketers to target the right customers. Audience The book will interest computer scientists, AI researchers, IT and software engineers, mathematicians.

Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL offers backgrounds in information studies, computer science, and sociology. This book is divided into three parts: analyzing social media, NodeXL tutorial, and social-media network analysis case studies. Part I provides background in the history and concepts of social media and social networks. Also included here is social network analysis, which flows from measuring, to mapping, and modeling collections of connections. The next part focuses on the detailed operation of the free and open-source NodeXL extension of Microsoft Excel, which is used in all exercises throughout this book. In the final part, each chapter presents one form of social media, such as e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube. In addition, there are descriptions of each system, the nature of networks when people interact, and types of analysis for identifying people, documents, groups, and events. - Walks you through NodeXL, while explaining the theory and development behind each step, providing takeaways that can apply to any SNA - Demonstrates how visual analytics research can be applied to SNA tools for the mass market - Includes case studies from researchers who use NodeXL on popular networks like email, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis - Download companion materials and resources at https://nodexl.codeplex.com/documentation

A proposal to repurpose Web-native techniques for use in social and cultural scholarly research. In Digital Methods, Richard Rogers proposes a methodological outlook for social and cultural scholarly research on the Web that seeks to move Internet research beyond the study of online culture. It is not a toolkit for Internet research, or operating instructions for a software package; it deals with broader questions. How can we study social media to learn something about society rather than about social media use? Rogers proposes repurposing Web-native techniques for research into cultural change and societal conditions. We can learn to reapply such “methods of the medium” as crawling and crowd sourcing, PageRank and similar algorithms, tag clouds and other visualizations; we can learn how they handle hits, likes, tags, date stamps, and other Web-native objects. By “thinking along” with devices and the objects they handle, digital research methods can follow the evolving methods of the medium. Rogers uses this new methodological outlook to examine such topics as the findings of inquiries into 9/11 search results, the recognition of climate change skeptics by climate-change-related Web sites, and the censorship of the Iranian Web. With Digital Methods, Rogers introduces a new vision and method for Internet research and at the same time applies them to the Web's objects of study, from tiny particles (hyperlinks) to large masses (social media).

This sparkling Handbook offers an unrivalled resource for those engaged in the cutting edge field of social network analysis. Systematically, it introduces readers to the key concepts, substantive topics, central methods and prime debates. Among the specific areas covered are: Network theory Interdisciplinary applications Online networks Corporate networks Lobbying networks Deviant networks Measuring devices Key Methodologies Software applications. The result is a peerless resource for teachers and students which offers a critical survey of the origins, basic issues and major debates. The Handbook provides a one-stop guide that will be used by readers for decades to come.

Transform Raw Social Media Data into Real Competitive Advantage There’s real competitive advantage buried in today’s deluge of social media data. If you know how to analyze it, you can increase your relevance to customers, establishing yourself as a trusted supplier in a cutthroat environment where consumers rely more than ever on “public opinion” about your products, services, and experiences. Social Media Analytics is the complete insider’s guide for all executives and marketing analysts who want to answer mission-critical questions and maximize the business value of their social media data. Two leaders of IBM’s pioneering Social Media Analysis Initiative offer thorough and practical coverage of the entire process: identifying the right unstructured data, analyzing it, and interpreting and acting on the knowledge you gain. Their expert guidance, practical tools, and detailed examples will help you learn more from all your social media conversations, and avoid pitfalls that can lead to costly mistakes. You’ll learn how to: Focus on the questions that social media data can realistically answer Determine which information is actually useful to you—and which isn’t Cleanse data to find and remove inaccuracies Create data models that accurately represent your data and lead to more useful answers Use historical data to validate hypotheses faster, so you don’t waste time Identify trends and use them to improve predictions Drive value “on-the-fly” from real-time/ near-real-time and ad hoc analyses Analyze text, a.k.a. “data at rest” Recognize subtle interrelationships that impact business performance Improve the accuracy of your sentiment analyses Determine eminence, and distinguish “talkers” from true influencers Optimize decisions about marketing and advertising spend Whether you’re a marketer, analyst, manager, or technologist, you’ll learn how to use social media data to compete more effectively, respond more rapidly, predict more successfully...grow profits, and keep them growing.

Do you want to study influencers? Opinions and comments on a set of posts? Look at collections of photos or videos on Instagram? Qualitative Research Using Social Media guides the reader in what different kinds of qualitative research can be applied to social media data. It introduces students, as well as those who are new to the field, to developing and carrying out concrete research projects. The book takes the reader through the stages of choosing data, formulating a research question, and choosing and applying method(s). Written in a clear and accessible manner with current social media examples throughout, the book provides a step-by-step overview of a range of qualitative methods. These are presented in clear ways to show how to analyze many different types of social media content, including language and visual content such as memes, gifs, photographs, and film clips. Methods examined include critical discourse analysis, content analysis, multimodal analysis, ethnography, and focus groups. Most importantly, the chapters and examples show how to ask the kinds of questions that are relevant for us at this present point in our societies, where social media is highly integrated into how we live. Social media is used for political communication, social activism, as well as commercial activities and mundane everyday things, and it can transform how all these are accomplished and even what they mean. Drawing on examples from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Weibo, and others, this book will be suitable for undergraduate students studying social media research courses in media and communications, as well as other humanities such as linguistics and social science-based degrees.