Social Media Analyses for Social Measurement.

Demonstrations that analyses of social media content can align with measurement from sample surveys have raised the question of whether survey research can be supplemented or even replaced with less costly and burdensome data mining of already-existing or "found" social media content. But just how trustworthy such measurement can be-say, to replace official statistics-is unknown. Survey researchers and data scientists approach key questions from starting assumptions and analytic traditions that differ on, for example, the need for representative samples drawn from frames that fully cover the population. New conversations between these scholarly communities are needed to understand the potential points of alignment and non-alignment. Across these approaches, there are major differences in (a) how participants (survey respondents and social media posters) understand the activity they are engaged in; (b) the nature of the data produced by survey responses and social media posts, and the inferences that are legitimate given the data; and (c) practical and ethical considerations surrounding the use of the data. Estimates are likely to align to differing degrees depending on the research topic and the populations under consideration, the particular features of the surveys and social media sites involved, and the analytic techniques for extracting opinions and experiences from social media. Traditional population coverage may not be required for social media content to effectively predict social phenomena to the extent that social media content distills or summarizes broader conversations that are also measured by surveys.

It's complicated: Facebook users' political participation in the 2008 election.

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, social network sites such as Facebook allowed users to share their political beliefs, support specific candidates, and interact with others on political issues. But do political activities on Facebook affect political participation among young voters, a group traditionally perceived as apathetic in regard to civic engagement? Or do these activities represent another example of feel-good participation that has little real-world impact, a concept often referred to as "slacktivism"? Results from a survey of undergraduate students (N = 683) at a large public university in the Midwestern United States conducted in the month prior to the election found that students tend to engage in lightweight political participation both on Facebook and in other venues. Furthermore, two OLS regressions found that political activity on Facebook (e.g., posting a politically oriented status update, becoming a "fan" of a candidate) is a significant predictor of other forms of political participation (e.g., volunteering for an organizing, signing a paper or online petition), and that a number of factors--including intensity of Facebook use and the political activity users see their friends performing on the site--predict political activity on Facebook. Students' perceptions regarding the appropriateness of political activity on Facebook, as well as the specific kinds of political activities they engaged in and witnessed within the site, were also explored.