Using APIs for Data Collection on Social Media

This article discusses how social media research may benefit from social media companies making data available to researchers through their application programming interfaces (APIs). An API is a back-end interface through which third-party developers may connect new add-ons to an existing service. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Information society Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 256 - 265
Main Authors: Lomborg, Stine, Bechmann, Anja
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Philadelphia, PA Routledge 08.08.2014
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects:
APIs
Application programming interface
Application programming interfaces
Data collection
data quality
Ethics
Exact sciences and technology
Information and communication sciences
Information science. Documentation
Library and information science. General aspects
Mass Media
Methodological Problems
methodology
Methodology (Data Collection)
Programming (Broadcast)
research ethics
Research methodology
Research methods
Sciences and techniques of general use
Social media
Social networks
Social Science Research
Social Services
Studies
Methodology
Use
APIs
Data
Research
research ethics
data collection
Ethics
data quality
Quality
Mass media
social media
Data gathering
ISSN:0197-2243, 1087-6537
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article discusses how social media research may benefit from social media companies making data available to researchers through their application programming interfaces (APIs). An API is a back-end interface through which third-party developers may connect new add-ons to an existing service. The API is also an interface for researchers to collect data off a given social media service for empirical analysis. Presenting a critical methodological discussion of the opportunities and challenges associated with quantitative and qualitative social media research based on APIs, this article highlights a number of general methodological issues to be dealt with when collecting and assessing data through APIs. The article further discusses the legal and ethical implications of empirical research using APIs for data collection.
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ISSN:0197-2243
1087-6537
DOI:10.1080/01972243.2014.915276