Innovations in Digital Research Methods

Vast amounts of digital data are now generated daily by people as they go about their lives, yet social researchers are struggling to exploit it. At the same time, the challenges faced by society in the 21^st century are growing ever more complex, and demands research that is bigger in scale, more collaborative and multi-disciplinary than ever before.

 

This cutting-edge volume provides an accessible introduction to innovative digital social research tools and methods that harness this data deluge and successfully tackle key research challenges. Contributions from leading international researchers cover topics such as:

• Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research
• Data management
• Social media and social network analysis
• Modeling and simulation
• Survey methods
• Visualizing social data
• Ethics and e-research
• The future of social research in the digital age

This vibrant introduction to innovative digital research methods is essential reading for anyone conducting social research today.

An exciting new introduction to digital social research tools and methods, this book helps readers to manage the huge amounts of data available, and feel confident if they are attempting this sort of research for the first time.Â

Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview - Peter Halfpenny and Rob Proctor
Chapter 2: The Changing Social Data Landscape - Kingsley Purdam and Mark Elliot
Chapter 3: Exploiting New Sources of Data - Kingsley Purdam and Mark Elliot
Chapter 4: Survey Methods: Challenges and Opportunities - Joe Murphy
Chapter 5: Advances in Data Management for Social Survey - Paul S. Lambert
Chapter 6: Modelling and Simulation - Mark Birkin and Nick Malleson
Chapter 7: Contemporary developments in statistical software for social scientists - Paul S. Lambert, William J. Browne and Danius T. Michaelides
Chapter 8: Text Mining and Social Media: When Quantitative Meets Qualitative, and Software Meets People - Lawrence Ampofo, Simon Collister, Ben O'Loughlin and Andrew Chadwick
Chapter 9: Digital Records and the Digital Replay System - Andy Crabtree, Paul Tennent, Pat Brundell and Dawn Knight
Chapter 10: Social Network Analysis - Robert Ackland and Jonathan Zhu
Chapter 11: Visualising Spatial Data and Social Media - Michael Batty, Steven Gray, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Richard Milton, Oliver O'Brien and Flora Roumpani
Chapter 12: Ethical Praxis in e-Research - R.J. Anderson and Marina Jirotka
Chapter 13: Sociology and the Digital Challenge - Mike Savage

An exciting new introduction to digital social research tools and methods, this book helps readers to manage the huge amounts of data available, and feel confident if they are attempting this sort of research for the first time.