Social media recruitment is no longer an uncharted avenue for survey research. The results thus far provide evidence of an engaging means of recruiting hard-to-reach populations. Questions remain, however, regarding whether the data collected using this method of recruitment produce quality data. This article assesses one aspect that may influence the quality of data gathered through nonprobability

We analyze recruitment, access, and longitudinal response paradata from a yearlong intensive longitudinal study (mDiary) that used a mobile-optimized web app to administer 25 biweekly diaries to youth recruited from a birth cohort study. Analyses investigate which aspects of teen recruitment experiences are associated with enrollment and longitudinal response patterns; whether compliance behavior of

Cybercriminals operate in obscurity to avoid detection of their illegal deeds. This fact makes studying them more difficult. Many cybercriminals meet in illicit online market places such as carding forums. The forums are often visible, but the actual transactions are carried out in private messages beyond view. However, there is no honor among thieves, and sometimes a carding forum server database

Increasing nonresponse rates is a pressing issue for many longitudinal panel studies. Respondents frequently either refuse participation in single survey waves (temporary dropout) or discontinue participation altogether (permanent dropout). Contemporary statistical methods that are used to elucidate predictors of survey nonresponse are typically limited to small variable sets and ignore complex interaction

This study examines how two distinct patterns of online political information exposure—pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure—can work together to influence engagement in online cross-cutting political discussion. Using panel data from a two-wave national survey conducted in 2012, we test two competing theoretical accounts. Findings suggest that incidental exposure

Recent advances in computing technologies have enabled the development of low-cost, compact weather and air quality monitors. The U.S. federally funded Array of Things (AoT) project has deployed more than 140 such sensor nodes throughout the City of Chicago. This article combines a year’s worth of AoT sensor data with household data collected from 450 elderly Chicagoans in order to explore the feasibility

Social networking sites (SNSs) might be important tools to contrast social exclusion in old age. However, the so-called gray digital divide (GDD) may undermine the potentialities of SNSs. Despite its relevance, there is very little research, which documented the characteristics of the digital divide in SNS use among the old-age population in Europe. Drawing on the “material access in resources and

Traditional survey research faces declining response rates due to changing cultural habits and technological developments. Researchers have developed novel approaches to increase respondents’ likelihood of participating in web surveys. However, we lack information about whether these methods indeed increase response rates and, if so, whether they bias the resulting data. This article focuses on the

Flags are important national symbols that have transcended into the digital world with inclusion in the Unicode character set. Despite their significance, there is little information about their role in online communication. This article examines the role of flag emoji in political communication online by analyzing 640,676 tweets by the most important political parties and Members of Parliament in

The recent rise of disinformation and propaganda on social media has attracted strong interest from social scientists. Research on the topic has repeatedly observed ideological asymmetries in disinformation content and reception, wherein conservatives are more likely to view, redistribute, and believe such content. However, preliminary evidence has suggested that race may also play a substantial role

Anxiety is a pervasive emotional state that tends to arise in situations involving uncertainty due partly to social and contextual issues including competition, economic disparity, and social insecurity. Thus, distribution of aggregate emotions, such as in anxiety, may reveal an important picture of otherwise invisible social processes in which individuals interact with local and global opportunities

Offering participants in mobile app studies personalized feedback on the data they report seems an obvious thing to do: Participants might expect an app to provide feedback given their experiences with commercial apps, feedback might motivate more people to participate in the study, and participants might be more motivated to provide accurate data so that the feedback is more useful to them. However

The growing influence of social bots in political discussion networks has raised significant concerns, particularly given their potential to adversely impact democratic outcomes. In this study, we report the results of a case study analysis of bot activity in a recent, high-profile political discussion network. Specifically, we examine the prevalence and impact of bots in a Twitter network discussing

This study examines the relationship between mode of Internet access, variety of online activities, and the potential for the Internet to contribute to local social capital in distressed, urban communities. Based on a sample of 525 telephone surveys in Detroit, findings show that breadth of access predicts participation in a larger variety of online activities, which is associated with higher levels

Online and offline interactions are thought to draw from separate but complementary skill sets. This explains why individuals who are competent interpersonally tend to get more out of social networking. At least part of what they already know about interacting applies online. But whether computer-based competence has some bearing on real-world interactional capability is still open to debate. The present

This article discusses the dangers of the Moral Machine (MM) experiment, alerting against both its uses for normative ends and the whole approach it is built upon to address ethical issues. It explores additional methodological limits of the experiment on top of those already identified by its authors; exhibits the dangers of computational moral systems for modern democracies, such as the “voting-based

The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of an online affect management intervention on relationship conflict through the rate of growth of team resilience in virtual teams with diversity faultlines. Fifty-two 4-person teams participated in a randomized controlled trial design with repeated measures (i.e., three measurement occasions). Teams were randomly assigned to either an intervention designed

Do social media platforms help or hinder democracy? Internet enthusiasts posit that social media could have a democratizing effect by lowering the costs of promotion, while skeptics argue that these platforms replicate or even exacerbate preexisting inequalities. We inform this debate by combining campaign finance and electoral outcome data from the Federal Election Commission with Twitter metrics

Forced answering (FA) is a frequent answer format in online surveys that forces respondents to answer each question in order to proceed through the questionnaire. The underlying rationale is to decrease the amount of missing data. Despite its popularity, empirical research on the impact of FA on respondents’ answering behavior is scarce and has generated mixed findings. In fact, some quasi-experimental

As an interdisciplinary field, data-driven journalism integrates the intellectual origins of investigative journalism, computer-assisted reporting, and the emerging paradigm of computational social science. Studies of news production have revealed, however, that news professionals are reinforcing existing power structures via an interpretive community, where homophily-evoked social interactions—even

Mixed-mode surveys need to determine a number of design parameters that may have a strong influence on costs and errors. In a sequential mixed-mode design with web followed by telephone, one of these decisions is when to switch modes. The web mode is relatively inexpensive but produces lower response rates. The telephone mode complements the web mode in that it is relatively expensive but produces

Grid or matrix questions are associated with a number of problems in Web surveys. In this paper, we present results from two experiments testing the design of grid questions to reduce breakoffs, missing data, and satisficing. The first examines dynamic elements to help guide respondent through the grid, and on splitting a larger grid into component pieces. The second manipulates the visual complexity

Health research on transgender people has been hampered by the challenges inherent in studying a hard-to-reach, relatively small, and geographically dispersed population. The Internet has the potential to facilitate access to transgender samples large enough to permit examination of the diversity and syndemic health disparities found among this population. In this article, we describe the experiences

Many believe that electronic medical record systems hold promise for improving the quality of health care services. The body of research on this topic is still in the early stages, however, in part because of the challenge of measuring the capabilities of electronic medical record systems. The purpose of this study was to identify classes of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system sophistication in

This article reviews a multimedia application in the area of survey measurement research: adding audio capabilities to a computer-assisted interviewing system. Hardware and software issues are discussed, and potential hardware devices that operate from DOS platforms are reviewed. Three types of hardware devices are considered: PCMCIA devices, parallel port attachments, and laptops with built-in sound