Provides the knowledge and tools needed for the future of survey research The survey research discipline faces unprecedented challenges, such as falling response rates, inadequate sampling frames, and antiquated approaches and tools. Addressing this changing landscape, Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research introduces readers to a multitude of new techniques in data collection in one of the fastest developing areas of survey research. The book is organized around the central idea of a "sociality hierarchy" in social media interactions, comprised of three levels: broadcast, conversational, and community based. Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research offers balanced coverage of the theory and practice of traditional survey research, while providing a conceptual framework for the opportunities social media platforms allow. Demonstrating varying perspectives and approaches to working with social media, the book features: style="line-height: 25px; margin-left: 15px; margin-top: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"> * New ways to approach data collection using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter * Alternate methods for reaching out to interview subjects * Design features that encourage participation with engaging, interactive surveys Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research is an important resource for survey researchers, market researchers, and practitioners who collect and analyze data in order to identify trends and draw reliable conclusions in the areas of business, sociology, psychology, and population studies. The book is also a useful text for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses on survey methodology and market research.

Craig A. Hill, PhD, is Senior Vice President for the
Survey, Computing, and Statistical Sciences at RTI International.
He has more than thirty years of experience in survey research,
having directed survey research projects for a wide variety of
federal, academic, and commercial clients.

Elizabeth Dean, MA, is a Survey Methodologist at RTI
International. She specializes in the development and testing of
innovative applications of survey methodology, such as designing
surveys for various social media platforms, investigating the use
of virtual worlds to increase survey privacy, and adapting
cognitive pretesting methods for use with emerging
technologies.

Joe Murphy, MA, is a Survey Methodologist at RTI
International. His research focus includes the implementation of
new data collection processes and analytic techniques to maximize
data quality, increase response, and reduce costs, as well as the
role of new technologies and social media in the collection and
analysis of social data.

Provides the knowledge and tools needed for the future of survey research

The survey research discipline faces unprecedented challenges, such as falling response rates, inadequate sampling frames, and antiquated approaches and tools. Addressing this changing landscape, Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research introduces readers to a multitude of new techniques in data collection in one of the fastest developing areas of survey research.

The book is organized around the central idea of a "sociality hierarchy" in social media interactions, comprised of three levels: broadcast, conversational, and community based. Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research offers balanced coverage of the theory and practice of traditional survey research, while providing a conceptual framework for the opportunities social media platforms allow. Demonstrating varying perspectives and approaches to working with social media, the book features:

• New ways to approach data collection using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter
• Alternate methods for reaching out to interview subjects
• Design features that encourage participation with engaging, interactive surveys

Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research is an important resource for survey researchers, market researchers, and practitioners who collect and analyze data in order to identify trends and draw reliable conclusions in the areas of business, sociology, psychology, and population studies. The book is also a useful text for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses on survey methodology and market research.

List of Figures xiii

List of Tables xvii

Contributors xix

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxv

1. Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research 1
Joe Murphy, Craig A. Hill, and Elizabeth Dean

What Is Social Media? 2

Social Media Origins 6

Social Networking Sites and Platforms 6

Blogs 8

Twitter 8

Facebook 9

LinkedIn 9

Second Life 9

Other Social Networking Platforms and Functionalities 10

Why Should Survey Researchers Be Interested in Social Media? 11

The Current State of Survey Research 11

Falling Response Rates 11

Frame Coverage Errors 13

The Coming Age of Ubiquity 14

Public vs. Private Data 17

Social Media Interaction: Next Wave (or Subwave)? 18

Adding Social Media to the Survey Research Toolbox 21

Toward Using the Concept of Sociality in Survey Research of the Future 22

How Can Survey Researchers Use Social Media Data? 26

References 28

2. Sentiment Analysis: Providing Categorical Insight into Unstructured Textual Data 35
Carol Haney

Describing Emotional or Subjective Feeling in Textual Data 36

Definition of Machine-Augmented Sentiment Analysis 37

How Sentiment Analysis Is Used with Text Data 38

Different Ways of Representing Sentiment 42

Ordinal Scales 42

Nominal Emotion Classification 43

Neutral Sentiment 44

Techniques for Determining Sentiment 44

Precursors to Analysis 44

Harvesting 46

Structure and Understand 50

Approaches to Determining Sentiment 51

Machine-Coded Sentiment Analysis 51

Human-Coded Sentiment Analysis 53

Sentiment Analysis as a Subset of Text Analytics 54

Current Limitations of Sentiment Analysis 57

References 59

3. Can Tweets Replace Polls? A U.S. Health-Care Reform Case Study 61
Annice Kim, Joe Murphy, Ashley Richards, Heather Hansen, Rebecca Powell, and Carol Haney

Methods 64

Twitter Data 64

Public Opinion About Health-Care Reform: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll 70

Analysis 70

Results 71

RQ1: To What Extent Was Health-Care Reform Discussed on Twitter? 71

RQ2: What Is the Distribution of Sentiment of Health-Care Reform Tweets? 74

RQ3. Do Trends in the Sentiment of Tweets About Health-Care Reform Correlate with Observed Trends
in Public Opinion About Health-Care Reform from Nationally Representative Probability-Based Surveys? 75

KFF Trends 75

Comparison 77

RQ4. What Are the Key Topics Discussed in Health-Care Reform Tweets? 78

Discussion 80

Conclusions 84

References 85

4. The Facebook Platform and the Future of Social Research 87
Adam Sage

The Changing Web: From Searchable to Social 88

Digital and Digitized Data 93

The Case for Facebook Integration 94

Data and the Graph API 97

Facebook Applications 99

Social Plugins 103

The Future, Mobile Apps, and the Ever Increasing Complexity of the Social Graph 104

References 104

5. Virtual Cognitive Interviewing Using Skype and Second Life 107
Elizabeth D…