"Social media has put mass communication in the hands of normal people on an unprecedented scale, and has also given social scientists the tools necessary to listen to the voices of everyday people around the world. This book gives social scientists the skills necessary to leverage that opportunity and transform social media's vast stream of information into social science data. The book combines the big data techniques of computer science with social science methodology. Intended as a text for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the social sciences, this book provides a methodological pathway for scholars who want to make use of this new and evolving source of data. It provides a framework for building one's own data collection and analysis infrastructure, a toolkit of content analysis, geographic analysis, and network analysis, and meditations on the ethical implications of social media data"--

Steven Lloyd Wilson is an assistant professor of politics at Brandeis University, project manager for the V-Dem Institute, and co-PI of the Digital Society Project. His research focuses on comparative democratization, cyber-security, and the effect of the Internet and social media on authoritarian regimes, particularly in the post-Soviet world.

1. Why social media matters to the social sciences; 2. Getting started with social media data; 3. Content analysis of social media data; 4. Geospatial analysis of social media data; 5. Network analysis of social media data; 6. The ethics of using social media data.