17

What is social media?

Social media are online platforms that allow individuals, communities and organisations to collaborate, connect, interact and build community by enabling them to create, co-create, modify, share and engage with user-generated content that is easily accessible.¹ Examples of social media include Facebook, Twitter (now known as X), Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Reddit. The global scale and use of social media are huge: 57 per cent of the world’s population uses social media (4.48 billion people) and 99 per cent of these users access social media by smartphone.² Social media connectivity is growing: from 2020–2021, 520 million more people joined at least one social media platform.³ Global populations using social media represent a large and as yet mostly untapped source from which researchers can download, analyse and interpret data on some of the world’s most pressing research agendas.

Types of social media studies

There are no specific study designs for social media research, but researchers have developed three typologies: extant, elicited and enacted.⁴ The three typologies are described in more detail below, and Table 16.1 provides examples of social media research based on each typology.

• Extant: Social media research that is extant seeks to use existing data through unobtrusive observation. The key idea is to observe, so there is no direct contact between participants and the researcher. Example data types include existing materials such as blog posts, tweets, or Instagram photos.⁴
• Elicited: Social media research that is elicited seeks to use data from participants in response to the researcher. The key idea is to interact, so there is interaction between >1 consenting participant and the researcher. Example data types include responding to a researcher-initiated blog post, tweet, or Instagram photo.⁴
• Enacted: Social media research that is enacted seeks to use data generated with participants during the study. The key idea is to co-develop, so there is collaboration between >1 participant and the researcher. Example data types include creative interaction, vignettes, problem-centred or scenario interviews using video or text, chat or messaging features. Of note, enacted studies are more likely to be mixed methods in design.⁴

How to undertake a social media study

Given the variability in social media platforms and the type of data that can be collected and analysed, there are as yet no standard guidelines as to how to conduct a social media study. A mixed-methods framework designed by Andreotta et al⁵ enables the collection and analysis of social media data.

Phase 1: Harvest social media and compile a corpus

Researchers can use automated tools to find social media data, extract this data and compile it into a corpus (a collection of written texts). Researchers might search for content posted in a particular time frame, containing specific content or posted by users with certain characteristics. This all depends on the research question and its aims and objectives.

Phase 2: Use data science techniques to compress the corpus along a dimension of relevance

Although researchers may want to examine the entire dataset, it is often more practical to focus on a subset of the data. Researchers can use data science techniques (e.g. algorithms, topic modelling) or manual qualitative methods (e.g. by narrowing the search strategy) to identify a representative subset of data to analyse.

Phase 3: Extract a subset of data from the most relevant spaces of the corpus

Once the data from phase 2 has been identified, researchers can extract the data most relevant for answering the research question. This may include all data in the compressed corpus, but the researcher may choose to randomly sample from the corpus if this is too large to analyse. If the data is perceived to be too narrow, the researcher can revisit phase 2 and adopt a more lenient search strategy.

Phase 4: Perform a qualitative analysis on this corpus of data

The final phase involves performing a qualitative analysis to address the research question, aims and objectives.

What should be considered before conducting social media research?

Franz et al have outlined 5 concepts to consider prior to conducting social media research: ⁶

• Participants: What kinds of participants, if any, will be included in the study? This generally applies only to the enacted social media typology. The researcher needs to consider the user characteristics of various social media platforms; for example, Facebook users tend to be older than Instagram users.
• Social media platform: There is a plethora of social media platforms, and each contains different types of data. Facebook, for example, collects a combination of public and private information about individual users. Twitter’s advanced search filters can be used to select desired variables and data about social media users. Many Instagram users have a ‘hidden’ profile that is inaccessible to researchers who are not ‘friends’ with them. Some platforms may also prohibit researchers to use their data; the words ‘no research’ may be indicated. When deciding what data is needed to address the research question, these factors need to be considered.
• Data analysis: Depending on the size of the dataset, researchers may prefer a manual versus an automated approach to coding and data analysis. Content, framework and thematic analysis, as described in Chapters 23–25, are methods often used by researchers to analyse social media research data.
• Data protection: ReCODE health⁷ is a US, web-based resource to help navigate ethical issues in social media research, which are outlined in the following section.

Ethical and legal challenges associated with social media research

Several challenges are associated with social media research. To begin with, social media users are generally unaware that their data could be used by researchers without their knowledge, which raises questions of informed consent.⁸ Second, the terms and conditions of social media platforms define the relationship between the platform and its users, but these legal agreements are often long and complex. It is questionable as to whether users understand these terms and conditions.⁹ At the same time, the terms and conditions of various social media platforms are always changing and will likely also change as the researcher’s work is underway. It is essential to constantly check this information to ensure that the research being undertaken does not violate these rules.¹⁰ At a minimum, it is essential for the researcher to apply for ethical approval from their institution’s ethics committee to conduct a social media study. Such a committee will require answers to the following questions:

• What action or process has the researcher implemented to ensure that the data used is published by a reliable source?
• Is it possible that social media users are the correct age or gender identity for the proposed study, and have the conditions, experiences or circumstances stated in their profiles?
• How will the data be extracted from the platform? It is important to be mindful when publishing research findings, as it may be possible to reverse-identify individual users.

Advantages and disadvantages of social media research

There are several strengths and limitations in conducting social media research.

Advantages of social media research include the ability to:

• engage with or gain access to populations that are difficult to access through traditional recruitment efforts; for example, highly immunocompromised people, or those living in the most remote communities
• gain easy access to a large volume of data that would otherwise take researchers months or years to collect themselves
• collect data quickly through search functions on various social media platforms; for example, using the advanced search function on Twitter

Disadvantages of social media research include:

• problems in identifying participants – the researcher is never fully able to know who participants are; for example, a social media account may be a bot. At the same time, the researcher is never able to fully de-identify people either
• users’ ability to delete or modify their content
• the highly curated nature of social media – posts are often not truly reflective of people’s views and perspectives
• the monitoring or prohibition of certain social media platforms in some countries; for example, in China and Iran. This limits data collection from some parts of the world. Governments in Australia are also poised to ban TikTok from devices issued to staff, which means that obtaining data from some populations may also be restricted

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Summary

Social media platforms can provide researchers with access to data that can be downloaded, analysed and interpreted to understand some of the world’s most pressing research agendas. There are 3 social media research typologies: extant, elicited and enacted, each involving varying levels of participant involvement. There is no definitive method of conducting social media research, and there are several ethical and legal challenges that researchers need to address.

References

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