Using social media data to study political science
Document Type : Articles
Author
Hitotsubashi University
Abstract
Social media are now involved in many aspects of human life. People use social media to do business, find friends, have fun, and discuss social and political issues. As an important aspect of our lives, and just like many other topics, politics is widely discussed on social media. Politicians, activists, civilians, companies and terrorists have made politics a hot topic on social media. However, there is no consensus among researchers on how reliable social media data can be for political science research, and what would be the proper method of collecting and analyzing social media data. In this paper, various theoretical and empirical works concerning the relationship between social media data, specifically Twitter data, and politics are critically examinedto demonstrate how social media data affect politics and contribute to political research. The findings imply that social media data have significantly contributed to the field of political communication by offering inexpensive and easily-accessible information, empowering marginal social entities to participate in politics and internationalizing communication among political actors.
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