INF6024: Researching Social Media

1. Module Aims and Objectives
The module will examine the key theoretical frameworks and methods used in social media
studies. Students will explore the following questions:
1) What can be learnt about society by studying social media?
2) How should researchers construct ethical stances for researching sites such as Facebook
and Twitter?
3) What insights can digital methods provide for social scientists studying social media?
4) What are the strengths and weaknesses of using traditional and digital research methods to
study these sites?
2. Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
 Evaluate the theoretical perspectives on the social media ecology;
 Construct an ethical stance for a project involving data collected from social media sites such
as Facebook and Twitter;
 Select appropriate traditional and digital research methods for social media data collection and
analysis
 Critically evaluate these approaches towards social media research.
3. Teaching and Learning on the Module
The module will be based on a lecture+practical format that focuses on preparing students with
ability to apply their knowledge and skills to solve realistic research problems in the social media
context. The content can be broadly divided into four topic areas (see ‘7. Teaching Schedule’).
For each area, a lecture is developed to prepare students with the necessary knowledge; then one
or two practical sessions (in the format of seminar or labs) follow the lecture to provide students
with hands-on opportunities to practice their knowledge and skills.
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Students must engage in significant weekly preparation, in which they must critically assess,
discuss and comment on assigned readings. Much of the course relies on journal articles and
books that can be accessed online via the StarPlus Library Catalogue. The teaching and learning
activities will include:
– Lectures in weeks 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12: students are expected to attend the face-to-face lecture to
learn the theoretical aspects of various topics concerning researching social media. Lectures
always take place on Tuesdays at 3-5pm, at Richard Roberts Building Pool Auditorium.
Notice that in Week 2 (and that week only), you are also required to prepare for the lecture by
watching a video before it takes place.
– Practicals in weeks 3, 4, 7, 9, 11: students will be allocated to one practical group, and attend an
1.5 hour practical session in each of these weeks. During these sessions, students are expected to
work on some exercises designed to support your assignment and therefore, closely related
to the tasks you are asked to do in the assignment. It is therefore, crucial that you engage the
practical sessions.
– Independent study: Please note that the expected learning hours for all 15 credit modules is 150
hours. Of this over 80% is independent study. Students are expected to actively engage suggested
readings and exercises offline.
4. Assessment
WARNING: You do not need to, and therefore MUST NOT collect any social media data in
this coursework. If your submission contains evidence of data collection activity without
ethical approval, it will be marked as FAIL.
The assessment of this module will require you to design a social media research project focusing
on a specific scenario with specific research question, and critically engage with the literature. You
will be required to explain this project in the format of a structured report, and critically reflect on
literature related to your choice of the research project, ethical issues, and research methods. The
assessment consists of two parts: 1) a formative assessment that carries 0% of the module
credits, and 2) a summative assessment that carries 100% of the module credits. The formative
assessment is designed to help you prepare your summative assessment.
4.1 Formative assessment: outline a social media research scenario and define your research
questions. Due at 10:00am on 18 March 2020 (Week 6). Submission by Google Form at
http://tiny.cc/751eiz. You must sign in with your University account to complete this form.
You are required to:
 Choose one research scenario in the list of suggestions from Section 4.1.1
 Narrow down the research scenario to a more specific scope, and define specific research
questions
 Complete the above Google Form by filling out the following information
◦ Your student ID and user name
◦ Your chosen research scenario’s ID number*
◦ Your chosen (one) social media platform on which you wish to study your proposed
research scenario
◦ A short description of the more specific research context and your research questions
(max of 100 words). In other words, you should not rephrase the the scenarios in
Section 4.1.1, as they are very general.
* The list of suggested scenarios are broad enough to cover the majority popular of social media
research projects. If you wish to propose something outside the list, you must discuss this with me
in writing at least 7 days before the submission deadline.
How you will be given feedback:
 Part of Week 8’s lecture will be used to give an oral, class-based feedback. I will review
your submissions, identify major problems, and discuss these with you in the class
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 Individual feedback on your submissions can be requested by email after the class-based
feedback is given. If you wish to do so, please email me, and feedback will be provided in
writing if you have submitted your Google Form response on time.
Why is this assessment important:
From past experiences, some students had difficulty in understanding what kind of social media
research are appropriate, and what research questions are specific enough to be feasible. This led
to a noticeable cases of FAIL grade. The formative assessment is thus created to ask you to
engage with this problem early in the module, and give me an opportunity to identify and address
potential problems. Your choice of the research scenario and questions will define the overall
context within which you design your research project, and therefore, it can effect on your overall
performance in the assessment.
4.1.1. Suggested research scenarios
Note: these topic areas are very broad – consider them as your general ‘interest’, and you will
have to further refine them in order to complete your summative assessment.
1. public figures’ (e.g., politicians, media celebrities, sports celebrities) social media presence,
their use of social media, or their viewpoints on certain specific topics
2. political election: voter participation, public opinions, etc.
3. political election: results prediction
4. political election: candidates/parties’ use of social media
5. opinions of different stakeholders on political matters, or their interactions
6. social activism: the usage of social media by specific organisations and/or participants, in
specific events, on specific topics, etc
7. sports events tracking (e.g., what’s going on in a football match)
8. sports event result prediction (e.g., FA cup winner)
9. sports rumor detection and tracking (e.g., footballer transfers)
10. sports clubs’ or fans’ usage of social media
11. economic events tracking and prediction (share/stock index, or specific equities)
12. film, music chart performance tracking and prediction
13. emergency response (e.g., the usage of social media during floods, earthquake)
14. health surveillance (e.g., tracking or prediction of infectious disease)
15. public opinion on certain entities (e.g., products, person, a piece of video, music), events
(e.g., refugee crisis), or trending topics
16. social media’s use for dating or friendship (e.g., how do people present themselves through
their pictures, behaviours etc)
17. public relation management: government agencies, businesses, NGO entities; or specific
PR incidents
18. functions of social media for certain entities/roles (e.g., the usage of social media by a
particular university, for education, etc)
19. information seeking (e.g., information diffusion and seeking on certain topics, such as the
public’s awareness of the causes of obesity)
20. social support seeking (e.g., how is one particular social media used by certain groups of
people to gain social support)
4.2 Summative assessment: design a social media research project. Due at 10:00am on 27
May 2020. Submission by TurnItIn in Blackboard.
You are required to design a social media research project contextualised to your chosen research
scenario and social media platform in the formative assessment. Report your design following the
structures below. You must use references (a minimum of 10) to support your discussion.
Part 1 (70%, 2100 words) – description and reflection of your research design. This part of your
report should contain the following sections:
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Section 1. Introduction: explaining your chosen research scenario with specific details, your
chosen social media platform, and your research questions. Discuss also the potential value of
your proposed research (i.e., why is it important).
Section 2. Data collection approach: explaining your data sampling strategy, the method and/or
tools you will propose to use for collecting the data. Then reflect on the strength and weakness of
your data collection approach in the context of your proposed research.
Section 3. Research method design: introducing the method, and explaining the process of
applying this method to the data you propose to collect. Then reflect on the strength and weakness
of the research methods in the context of your proposed research. You must use methods taught
on this module.
Section 4. Ethical considerations: explaining the ethical issues involved with collecting and
analysing data in your proposed social media research project, and what measures you will
implement to address them.
This self-check list helps you better prepare this part of your assignment:
 Do you understand the alignment between teaching sessions and different sections you are
required to write? Your Week 1 Lecture explicitly covers this.
 Have you completed the exercises in practical sessions? These are developed to support this
part of the assessment.
 How specific are your research scenario and questions? What are the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, and
‘when’ parameters (if appropriate)?
 What is the specific social media platform you propose to study, have you introduced its features
and functions?
 How does your data collection approach meet the parameters set by your research scenario and
questions?
 How specific is your explanation of your research methods? What are the steps for applying
them to the data you propose to collect?
 How do your research methods address your research questions?
 What are the different angles from which you can discuss the ethical considerations, have you
considered all of them that are appropriate for your research?
 How is your discussion and reflection contextualised to your proposed research?
Part 2 (30%, 900 words) – a critique of the research described in one published article that is
closely related to your proposed social media research. It is recommended that you select an
article that involves primary data collection, and that has used some of the research methods
taught on this module. This part of your report should contain the following sections:
Section 1. A descriptive summary in your own words that explains the research, why it is relevant
to your designed social media research project, what data are collected for this research and its
methods for data collection, what method(s) are used to analyse the data, and the key conclusions
from the research. Your summary must be self-contained, i.e., it must explain the research
clearly and with essential details. Markers are not responsible for reading the paper itself
before marking.
Section 2. Analysis and reflection of the research addressing the following points with justifications
(you may focus on particularly a few points with more depth):
 its limitations due to the choice of the social media platform (hint: could any other social
media platforms be more suitable and why or why not)
 its limitations due to data collection (hints: consider the sources, modality, types, quantity
and quality of of data)
 its limitations due to the method(s) for analysis (hints: consider how the research methods
taught on this module can complement each other, and if and how they can also address
the same objectives)
 the impact and/or weakness of its findings (hints: why is the research valuable, to whom?)
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This self-check list helps you better prepare this part of your assignment:
 Have you read a lot (not one) of published articles related to your proposed research?
 How similar are these articles to your proposed research (in terms of the scenario, the objectives,
the research questions, the data collection and analysis methods)?
 Have you read the full text of each article, not just the abstracts?
 Have you read their ‘discussion’ or ‘limitation’ sections, if any?
 Have you thought about how you could do their research differently?
A sample is provided in ‘Coursework – Supporting Materials’. You must not reuse the same article
and doing so will result in a mark of 0 awarded for this part of the assessment.
5. Information School Coursework Submission Requirements
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure no aspect of their work is plagiarised or the result of
other unfair means. The University’s and Information School’s Advice on unfair means can be
found in your Student Handbook, available via http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/current
Your assignment has a word count limit. A deduction of 3 marks will be applied for coursework that
is 10% or more above or below the total word count as specified above or that does not state the
word count.
It is your responsibility to ensure your coursework is correctly submitted before the deadline. It is
highly recommended that you submit well before the deadline. Coursework submitted after 10am
on the stated submission date will result in a deduction of 5% of the mark awarded for each
working day after the submission date/time up to a maximum of 5 working days, where ‘working
day’ includes Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) and runs from 10am to 10am.
Coursework submitted after the maximum period will receive zero marks.
Work submitted electronically, including through Turnitin, should be reviewed to ensure it appears
as you intended.
Before the submission deadline, you can submit coursework to Turnitin numerous times. Each
submission will overwrite the previous submission. Only your most recent submission will be
assessed. However, after the submission deadline, the coursework can only be submitted once.

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