Tomorrow I am teaching a seminar on social media research. A colleague of mine, Dan Siegel, is teaching the first two hours on traditional online research. I am covering the last hour on social media.
I just finished my slides and if you are interested, feel free to see them here
I am teaching in Philadelphia but the seminar is being Webcast throughout Pennsylvania (and you may take the Webinar anywhere if you like.) It is worth 3 credits and is from 9:00-12:15 Eastern on 8/23/2011. Register here
The outline of my presentation for this basic level seminar is as follows:
1. Introduce the subject and explain the unique considerations surrounding social media research.
-Legal Issues – what can happen if you improperly access accounts
-Privacy Issues – how you can be blocked from accessing accounts
-Ethical Issues – what you may and may not do in your research and in terms of friending people
2. Techniques
-Gather helpful data (email addresses, accounts using, etc.)
-Begin the search using various tools
3. Begin at the site you want to search (if you know) and see what you can access. At this point I will use a willing victim…um friend, as my starting point for a search.
4. Next I will show why it matters to get all of the email addresses and examine whether someone with a common name has a MySpace account.
5. The next hypo will be showing how you can search for a specific term throughout social media sites, along with showing how you can search Facebook Statuses.
6. Next I will discuss how to set up an alert and how to keep your eyes out for a specific person or topic by doing so.
7. I will move into verification issues – are you sure you have the right person and the right account?
8. Last I will discuss Authentication and preservation
This is my first time giving this presentation. Think it will fill an hour ok?
I hope you like the slides and that whoever attends it finds it useful. I welcome any and all feedback.