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.