Abstract

The literature on social media analytics typically focuses on the social processes within the social media group that is being studied. On the other hand, the subjective views of the social media analysts have received less attention. Here, we demonstrate that the subjectivity of the analyst can have a bearing on both qualitative and quantitative social network analytics. We provide a methodology to analyze the analysts’ subjective frames of reference and their impact on the way they interpret the social group under study and also the social context within their organization that prompted the inquiry in the first place. We offer a methodology for analyzing the types of resources, characteristics, and knowledge held by key influencers in a social media group, and then use the findings to better understand the frames of reference of its members at large. We propose that social media analytics should be carried out by groups of analysts who discuss their individual viewpoints and bring about a “fusion of horizons,” in contrast to the prevalent practice of analysts conducting the analysis alone. We test our methodology with a study of #Blogchat, the largest live chat group on Twitter.

摘要

关于社交媒体分析的文献通常侧重于正在研究的社交媒体组内的社交过程。另一方面，社交媒体分析师的主观观点较少受到关注。在这里，我们证明了分析师的主观性对定性和定量的社交网络分析都有影响。我们提供了一种方法来分析分析师的主观参考框架及其对他们解释所研究的社会群体的方式的影响，以及他们组织内最初促使调查的社会背景。我们提供了一种方法来分析社交媒体组中关键影响者所拥有的资源类型、特征和知识，然后使用调查结果更好地了解其广大成员的参考框架。我们建议社交媒体分析应该由分析师小组进行，他们讨论他们的个人观点并带来“视野融合”，这与分析师单独进行分析的普遍做法形成鲜明对比。我们通过对 Twitter 上最大的实时聊天群组 #Blogchat 的研究来测试我们的方法。