At the end of this course, you are able to:

• Collect data from social media platforms with a clear goal, using the software package R(Studio)
• Organize and analyze data collected from social media to answer a predetermined question
• Clearly report and visualize the collected data and associated analyses
• Advise a third party on social media strategy based on insights from analysis of social media data

Social media are now an integral part of our media landscape. In addition to their value to users themselves, social media can also be very valuable to researchers, commercial organizations, NGOs, governments, and others. They can gain insights by collecting data from social media about all kinds of things, such as which topics are being discussed a lot and how certain topics are discussed. These insights can be useful, for example, for monitoring public health, marketing, or combating misinformation.

In this course, you will learn the basics of using social media for these purposes. You will learn how to obtain data from social media platforms, such as YouTube. You will then organize the data to make it usable and analyze it. You will report and visualize the data from a scientific perspective, and from a practical perspective, you will present your insights and give advice to a (hypothetical) organization of your choice.

It is recommended to have installed and started up R(Studio) and to have practiced loading a data file into the system at least once. (For Communication Science students: If you have completed ‘Leerproject 1’ you have enough prior knowledge to get started in this course.)

Bachelor students Communication Science must have obtained 42 EC from B1. This course has limited accessibility for students from other study programmes and international students. 
We refer students from other study programmes to the admission requirements for B2 and B3 elective courses in this study guide under the heading Students from other study programmes.
 

You will hand in a report and give a presentation. There will be no written exam.

This course will be taught in English. 

This course is part of a minor on social media in the Communication Science bachelor, but can also be followed separately.