Web Survey Bibliography
Title Taming Big Data: Using App Technology to Study Organizational Behavior on Social Media
Author Bail, C. A.
Source Sociological Methods & Research; 46, 2, pp. 189-217
Year 2015
Database SAGE Journals Online
Access date 22.08.2017
Abstract Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter provide an unprecedented amount of qualitative data about organizations and collective behavior. Yet these new data sources lack critical information about the broader social context of collective behavior—or protect it behind strict privacy barriers. In this article, I introduce social media survey apps (SMSAs) that adjoin computational social science methods with conventional survey techniques in order to enable more comprehensive analysis of collective behavior online. SMSAs (1) request large amounts of public and non-public data from organizations that maintain social media pages, (2) survey these organizations to collect additional data of interest to a researcher, and (3) return the results of a scholarly analysis back to these organizations as incentive for them to participate in social science research. SMSAs thus provide a highly efficient, cost-effective, and secure method for extracting detailed data from very large samples of organizations that use social media sites. This article describes how to design and implement SMSAs and discusses an application of this new method to study how nonprofit organizations attract public attention to their cause on Facebook. I conclude by evaluating the quality of the sample derived from this application of SMSAs and discussing the potential of this new method to study non-organizational populations on social media sites as well.
Access/Direct link Journal Homepage (abstract) / (full text)
Year of publication2015
Bibliographic typeJournal article
Web survey bibliography - Sociological Methods & Research (15)
- Estimating the Impact of Measurement Differences Introduced by Efforts to Reach a Balanced Response...; 2017; Kappelhof, J. W. S.; De Leeuw, E. D.
- Taming Big Data: Using App Technology to Study Organizational Behavior on Social Media; 2015; Bail, C. A.
- The Use of a Nonprobability Internet Panel to Monitor Sexual and Reproductive Health in the General...; 2015; Legleye, S; Charrance, G.; Razafindratsima, N.; Bajos, N.; Bohet, A.; Moreau, C.
- The Impact of Mixing Modes on Reliability in Longitudinal Studies; 2014; Cernat, A.
- Panel Attrition - Separating Stayers, Fast Attriters, Gradual Attriters, and Lurkers; 2014; Lugtig, P. J.
- Asking Sensitive Questions: An Evaluation of the Randomized Response Technique Versus Direct Questioning...; 2013; Wolter, F.; Preisendoerfer, P.
- Measurement Effects of Survey Mode on the Equivalence of Attitudinal Rating Scale Questions; 2013; Klausch, L. T., Hox, J., Hox, J., Schouten, B.
- Not by the Book: Facebook as a Sampling Frame; 2012; Brickman Bhutta, C.
- Multiple Sources of Nonobservation Error in Telephone Surveys: Coverage and Nonresponse; 2011; Peytchev, A.; Carley-Baxter, L. R.; Black, M. C.
- Nonparametric Tests of Panel Conditioning and Attrition Bias in Panel Surveys; 2011; Das, M., Toepoel, V., van Soest, A.
- Introduction to the Special Issue on Web Surveys ; 2009; Witte, J. C.
- Smartphones: An Emerging Tool for Social Scientists; 2009; Raento, M., Oulasvirta, A., Eagle, N.
- Designing Scalar Questions for Web Surveys; 2009; Christian, L. M., Parsons, N. L., Dillman, D. A.
- Web-based network sampling - Efficiency and efficacy of respondent-driven sampling for online research...; 2008; Wejnert, C., Heckathorn, D. D.
- Feeling thermometers versus 7-point scales. Which are better?; 1997; Alwin, D. F.