On the Interpretation of Digital Trace Data in Communication and Social Computing Research

Beyond the Wall: Mapping Twitter in China

“…9 They divide users into three groups: information seekers, information sources, and friends, which span the range of information seeking and social activity. There is no clear consensus yet on how to interpret what it means to follow someone on Twitter, 10 which is unsurprising given the multiplicity of motives for forming ties on Twitter. Yet few doubt that these ties on Twitter are of social significance.…”

Expression and Reception: An Analytic Method for Assessing Message Production and Consumption in CMC

“…In addition, there are growing opportunities for scholars to come up with creative ways to pair content analysis with survey data (Niederdeppe, 2016), also allowing for novel insights. An endless stream of digital trace data is being created at any given moment (Freelon, 2014; Howison, Wiggins, & Crowston, 2011), although gaining access to some of this data (e.g., Facebook data) is becoming more restricted as commercial interests and privacy concerns take hold. Nonetheless, we are advocates for the coming age of computational social science , and believe this turn holds special promise for the field of communications, given how well positioned it is for these emergent methods (see Lazar et al, 2009; Shah, Cappella & Neuman, 2015).…”

The Digital Phenotype: a Philosophical and Ethical Exploration

“…11). The extended phenotype 2 Twitter followers include bots (software programmed by paid professionals) whose goal is to enhance the perception of popularity of politicians, celebrities and companies (Freelon 2014). Freelon cites the so-called "Karpf's rule": "any metric of digital influence that becomes financially valuable, or is used to determine newsworthiness, will become increasingly unreliable over time".…”