Social media has become mainstream and offers numerous research opportunities to academics, students and practitioners. An Introduction to Social Media Research: Theory and Application is an essential new resource on how to conduct social media research in a scientific manner. This book will equip social media researchers, students and practitioners across various fields with the necessary knowledge to conduct social media research in a scientific and systematic manner.

Key Features/ benefits

• Follows a logical sequence in the social media research process
• Includes easy to understand aspects not considered in this much depth in other books, for example, social media theories, data collection and analysis techniques, as well as sampling methods for quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research
• Covers aspects of ethics, validity and reliability related to social media research
• How to features: Using various tools e.g. data cleaning and collection tools; data analysis and reporting tools; using various sampling methods and approaches; using media analytics and data mining; using different software, social media tools and applications to extract data for research
• Local case studies
• Best practice examples
• Templates and sample documents

Support material

• PowerPoint presentations
• Case studies
• Templates

• Introduction to social media for research
• Introduction to the social media research process
• Prominent theoretical frameworks in social media research
• Using a qualitative research approach in social media research
• Using a quantitative research approach in social media research
• Using a mixed methods approach in social media research
• Sampling social media data
• Collecting social media data
• Analysing social media data
• Ethical issues in social media research
• Implications of new media data

Academics, students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) as well as practitioners in various disciplines, where social media research is a growing field of interest and is applicable to their various fields and disciplines.