Every day, millions of users post, like, and share a wide variety of content on Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Social media communication is often held responsible for many things—both positively and negatively. This is reason enough for us to focus on research in the field of social media in this edition of #CAISzeit.
Our guests today are Dr. Katrin Weller and Dr. Johannes Breuer, two distinguished experts. Both work at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences while also establishing the “Research Data and Methods” department at CAIS, which deals with questions related to digital research data and methodologies.
With them, we discuss why researching social media platforms is essential and how researchers approach this task. We also examine how restricted access to data—for example, on Twitter, now X—poses challenges for research. Additionally, we explore whether the Digital Services Act, which recently came into effect, can help improve the situation.
Recommended Resources
Research
- Research at the GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften: https://www.gesis.org/institut/digitale-verhaltensdaten
- Information on research at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI): https://smo.leibniz-hbi.de/
- Information on research at the Social Media Lab of the Toronto Metropolitan University: https://socialmedialab.ca/
Documentary
- The Cleaners (2018) – Directed by H. Block & M. Riesewieck. Available via the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb). The documentary follows thousands of outsourced content moderators working for platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. They are tasked with reviewing images and videos and making split-second decisions about whether to delete or allow them. Content Warning: This documentary may contain distressing content, including depictions of violence. Viewer discretion is advised (FSK 16).
Podcasts
- Podcast (English) “Social Media & Politics. With Michael Bossetta (Political and Data Scientist at the Lund University): https://socialmediaandpolitics.org/
- Podcast (English): What is it about computational communication science? With Emese Domahidi (Professor at the Technical University of Ilmenau) and Mario Haim (Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich): https://podtail.com/de/podcast/what-is-it-about-computational-communication-scien/
Books
- Gosling, S. (2008). Snoop: What your stuff says about you. Basic Books. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-19483-000
- Zuboff, S. (2018). Das Zeitalter des Überwachungskapitalismus.Campus. https://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wirtschaft-gesellschaft/wirtschaft/das_zeitalter_des_ueberwachungskapitalismus-15097.html
