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ERIC Number: EJ1148298
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Aug
Pages: 32
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0049-1241
EISSN: N/A
Using Twitter for Demographic and Social Science Research: Tools for Data Collection and Processing
McCormick, Tyler H.; Lee, Hedwig; Cesare, Nina; Shojaie, Ali; Spiro, Emma S.
Sociological Methods & Research, v46 n3 p390-421 Aug 2017
Despite recent and growing interest in using Twitter to examine human behavior and attitudes, there is still significant room for growth regarding the ability to leverage Twitter data for social science research. In particular, gleaning demographic information about Twitter users--a key component of much social science research--remains a challenge. This article develops an accurate and reliable data processing approach for social science researchers interested in using Twitter data to examine behaviors and attitudes, as well as the demographic characteristics of the populations expressing or engaging in them. Using information gathered from Twitter users who state an intention to not vote in the 2012 presidential election, we describe and evaluate a method for processing data to retrieve demographic information reported by users that is not encoded as text (e.g., details of images) and evaluate the reliability of these techniques. We end by assessing the challenges of this data collection strategy and discussing how large-scale social media data may benefit demographic researchers.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Army Research Office (ARO)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 62389CSYIP