Social Media Research Big Data

About

Citizens across the globe spend an increasing proportion of their daily lives online. Their activities leave behind granular, time-stamped footprints of human behavior and personal interactions that represent a new and exciting source of data to study standing
questions about political and social behavior. At the same time, the volume and heterogeneity of web data present unprecedented methodological challenges.

Target group

Students, researchers, business professionals who need to develop good quality surveys and/or need to apply appropriate and up-to-date statistical methods. At the conclusion of the Summer School, participants will receive a certificate for each course and with the number of hours attended.

Course aim

The goal of this course is to introduce participants to new computational methods and tools required to explore and analyze Big Data from online sources using the R programming language. We will focus in particular on data collected from social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, whose use is becoming widespread in the social sciences.
After the course, students will have an advanced understanding of the opportunities of big data and social media mining for social science studies, and will be equipped with the technical skills necessary to conduct their own research.