1. SOCIAL MEDIA IN
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Exploring Key Points in Understanding Social Media
Research
Katrin A. Sawatzky
University of Guelph
EDRD6000 13/03/14

2. Context
 The social media revolution has changed the way
that researchers conduct research and the way that
people communicate
 Millions of people contribute to social media
databases everyday
(Branthwaite, A. and Patterson, S., 2011)

3. Social Media Research Support
 We live in a world where SMR is heavily used.
There are a multitude of organizations, companies
and software that are available to assist a
researcher in analyzing qualitative data harvested
from social media, but many of them focus on
marketing research
Abbott Research & Consulting
- Specializes in customer experience
and service industries
Campos Inc
- Specializes in tracking
& understanding
consumer trends
Doyle Research Associates
-Specializes in qualitative
analysis & social media
analysis
Retrieved on March 13, 2014 from http://www.newqualitative.org/qualitative-research/social-media-qualitative/

4. What is Social Media Research (SMR)?
 It is research using naturally occurring social media
conversations as your primary data source
 It is not online surveys, online focus groups, or online
communities
 SMR mines information from existing data such as posts or
blogs from Tumblr, Twitter and other online platforms
 Variables are also identified based on the existing data
 Researcher checks off the boxes for participants
 A Facebook status update might read, “Feeling frustrated by the
weather” and it is up to the researcher to translate that into
useful data; i.e. code that the weather is what frustrates the
individual
(Branthwaite, A. and Patterson, S., 2011)

5. Who Uses Social Media Research?
 SMR is used in many spheres
 It is greatly utilized in marketing so that organizations and
companies can understand public opinion and adjust their
product and/or programs accordingly
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3GPHV5Kp_I
 It is used in social psychology to understand human trends,
beliefs, behaviours and attitudes
 It is used in every aspect of academia as a qualitative and
quantitative research tool to gain insights on how the
research topic is being understood by the public
 NVivo10 is a mixed-methods data analysis software that allows a
researcher to analyze unstructured data. NCapture, a web
browser extension, allows you to import content & data mined
from social media platforms and analyze the data in NVivo10
(Branthwaite, A. and Patterson, S., 2011)

6. The qualitative researcher is already equipped with many research tools.
Utilizing Social Media Research introduces an additional tool to our toolkit.
(Henderson, 2011)

7. Traditional Processes in Survey
Research vs. Processes for SMR
Retrieved on March 13, 2014 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1o8WSMpQsU

8. The Advantages of Social Media
Research (SMR)
 The researcher has the ability to jump back in time to
understand a trend, reflect on an incident or remember
significant events
 Daily tracking; we can monitor day by day what
people are talking about
 Thousands of variables; you have access to millions of
people and an endless amount of content areas
(Henderson, 2011)
** Some of the information for this slide was retrieved from a Youtube series
entitled ‘SMART Bootcamp’. Accessed from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1o8WSMpQsU **

9. The Disadvantages of Social Media
Research (SMR)
 Access to minimal information about geodemographics with social media,
especially in Twitter with a limited character count per post
 If researchers are not able to obtain demographic data from social media, it is
essentially ‘missing’ data
 Certain topics have very little coverage on social media platforms due to
access and/or popular interest, and this results in a limited data set for the
researcher. The researcher must understand when SMR is appropriate.
 If mining information about the Olympics, social media platforms would be an
appropriate avenue to do so, whereas SMR might not be appropriate when gathering
information about gendered activities in rural households in sub-Saharan Africa
 SMR cannot measure awareness of the issue, topic or product
** Information for this slide was retrieved from a Youtube series entitled ‘SMART
Bootcamp’. Accessed from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1o8WSMpQsU **

10. When conducting SMR, remember to:
 Maintain your data quality
 When putting an acronym into your search engine in Facebook or
Twitter, ensure you are searching the appropriate acronym to obtain
your full set of data
 HFCS High Fructose Corn Syrup and HFCS Hydrofluorocarbons
 Double check meaning of words during the content analysis phase of your
research
 Has your informant used the word ‘new’ but really meant to use ‘knew’?
Misinterpretation of language could skew results
 Ensure that you understand and correctly interpret the sentiment behind
each emoticon
 :) means good; :( means bad; :-S means worried
** Information for this slide was taken from a Youtube series entitled SMART Bootcamp.
Accessed from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1o8WSMpQsU **

11. Ethical Considerations for Social Media
Research
 Remember that social media is a personal domain and often times people
say things they may not have meant
 Respect for privacy is very important
 TCPS2 has some great information surrounding ethical guidelines for mining
social media data when it is in the public sphere:
http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-
eptc2/Default/
 Ethical guidelines are very similar for social media research as with
traditional research, with some additions; visit the following sites for more
info:

12. Reflections
 How do you feel about using social networking sites
to mine data from the public?
 How do you feel, knowing that very little you post
online is confidential, and that the majority of what
you post and engage with on social media sites is
used in market research?
 Do you think that Social Media Research is a viable
form of primary data in qualitative research?

13. References
 Branthwaite, A. and Patterson, S. (2011). The power of qualitative research in the era of social media.
Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 14(4), pp.430 – 440.
 Correa, T., Hinsley, W., and Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2009). Who interacts on the web?: the intersection of users’
personality and social media use. Computers in Human Behaviour, 1186, pp. 7.
 Henderson, N. (2011). Is there a role for social media in qualitative research? Qualitative Reflections, 23(3):
pp. 36.
 Nvivo10 (2014). http://www.qsrinternational.com/products_nvivo.aspx?utm_source=NVivo+10+for+Mac
 Social Media Research Foundation. (2014). Retrieved on March 10, 2014 at
http://www.smrfoundation.org/
 Zaltzman, J. and Leichliter, B. (2013). Social media-related qualitative research. New Qualitative Research.
Retrieved on March 10, 2014 at http://www.newqualitative.org/qualitative-research/social-media-
qualitative/
 http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/Default/
 http://www.newqualitative.org/qualitative-research/social-media-qualitative/
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1o8WSMpQsU
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3GPHV5Kp_I