Have We Even Solved the First 'Big Data Challenge'?: Practical Issues Concerning Data Collection and Visual Representation for Social Media Analytics

Brooker, PD ORCID: 0000-0003-1189-4647, Barnett, J, Cribbin, T and Sharma, S (2006) Have We Even Solved the First 'Big Data Challenge'?: Practical Issues Concerning Data Collection and Visual Representation for Social Media Analytics. In: Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan,London, pp. 34-50. ISBN 9781349558629

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Official URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/97811374...

Abstract

Thanks to an influx of data collection and analytic software, harvesting and visualizing ‘big’ social media data1 is becoming increasingly feasible as a method for social science researchers. Yet while there is an emerging body of work utilizing social media as a data resource, there are a number of computational issues affecting data collection. These issues may problematize any conclusions we draw from our research work, yet for the large part, they remain hidden from the researcher’s view. We contribute towards the burgeoning literature which critically addresses various fundamental concerns with big data (see boyd and Crawford, 2012; Murthy, 2013; Rogers, 2013). However, rather than focusing on epistemological, political or theoretical issues — these areas are very ably accounted for by the authors listed above, and others — we engage with a different concern: how technical aspects of computational tools for capturing and handling social media data may impact our readings of it. This chapter outlines and explores two such technical issues as they occur for data taken from Twitter.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Social Media, Data Visualization, Social Media Data, Twitter Data, Methodological Practice
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	10 Apr 2019 14:39
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 00:54
DOI:	10.1057/9781137453662_3
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3036367