There are no pre-requisites for this module to be added

Social Media offers a means, for instance, for private users to communicate with family and friends, and to broadcast opinion; for individuals to promote small businesses; for larger businesses to target advertising to specific demographics; for political parties and organisations to influence the electorate; and for news outlets to channel stories and opinion to target audiences. This growth in communications media is the result not of philanthropy, but of business models that rely on the exchange of personal data for access. On the one hand, this provides businesses with a means to analyse and refine the effectiveness of their social media presence. On the other, private users give away vast amounts of data about themselves, which they often have little cognisance of or control over. On this module you will develop foundational social media analytics skills. You will learn how to establish social media research questions; locate, harvest, and analyse social media data; and use this information to develop reports. You will also learn how to evaluate both images and the language used in social media posts, and the metadata underscoring these posts. In doing so you will develop an understanding of the ethical, political, and sociological issues that arise with social media analytics.

Upon completion of this module you will be able to

LO1: Define the parameters of a social media analytics project.

LO2: Locate appropriate data for a social media analytics research project.

LO3: Perform social media searches to collect qualitative and quantitative data.

LO4: Report on the findings of a social media analytics project, with particular attention to the relationship between qualitative and quantitative analyses.

LO5: Develop insight into the legal, ethical, political, and sociological issues of social media and analytics research.