How can you collect and examine social media data? In this workshop, we will use the R statistical programming language to download and begin to examine social media data from Twitter and Reddit. We look closely at the data and then zoom out to consider overall trends. The aim of this workshop is to introduce the collection and analysis of social media data. The materials for this workshop are available on GitHub here.

The workshop is available for Warwick staff and students, who can sign up here. If you have any queries then please contact james.tripp@warwick.ac.uk

Our public discourse is often mediated by social media. Both the personalities and the structure of the platforms shape our debates, to construct meaning and foster our shared selves. Finding means to collect, collate, and form narratives around these platforms is useful for scholars in the Arts and humanities.

In this workshop, we (a) look at tools for interacting with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to collect data, (b) explore some basic analysis and (c) consider critically what our tool and methods allow us to learn about these platforms and the debates within.