A Digital Sociology Study Group Event

28 April 2017, 10:00-13:00
Leeds Beckett University, UK

Analysing Data from Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Smartphones

Social media are now a central part of many people’s lives. When we send messages, comment, upload photographs and make connections with others we are creating new kinds of networks. This creates vast amounts of data which hide valuable insights. This workshop will introduce a range of free tools which can help you to collect and analyse these data. It will also help you to tackle the even thornier issue of how to interpret these data as a sociologist.

We will engage in hands-on workshop activities on data-driven digital methods and their research applications in relation to people’s lives.The aim is to introduce critical engagement with the digital tools as well as the application of these tools to research questions. The workshops will be conceptually grounded in the problems of public communication and privacy, digital media production and consumption, and the ethical issues associated with big/social data and digital methods in the context of digital media environments.

Outline of the event

Tools to be introduced will enable researchers to collect data from Smartphones; Twitter; Youtube; Facebook as well as visualise and export the data for publication without any programming skills required.

Asking questions regarding every decision in these processes is a necessary component of thinking sociologically while archiving, visualising and interpreting the data being collected.

We will work through four main themes:

• Social Media Data Collection
• Social Media Data Analysis
• Visualisation and Presentation
• Ethics of Mapping Social Media

Convened by Dr Steven McDermott who lectures on contemporary developments in media and communications at the University of the Arts London.

Booking Open