SOC 417 - Senior Seminar: Social Media

We live in a time when social media is nearly unavoidable. Younger generations in particular are consistently connected through social media in historically unprecedented ways. A unique characteristic of social media conversations (compared to prior communications technologies) is that they leave behind digital records! In the last decade, sociologists and other social scientists have found these records (tweets, forum posts, facebook groups) are rich data sources to analyze a myriad of social patterns. In this course we will assess the variety of sociological questions that can be answered using social media data. We will read examples on topics of mental health and social movements to inspire our own ideas.

Within the umbrella of “social media,” there are so many research project possibilities for students in terms of both topics and methods. Student projects can range from analyzing publicly available social media content (discourse analysis) to conduct qualitative and mixed methods projects, or acquiring permission (IRB) to conduct virtual interviews or evaluate private forums and spaces, or drawing from secondary data sources to quantitatively analyze patterns of social media use.  Note that choosing a topic, research question and method early in the semester will ensure the smoothest experience in this class.