The internet has not only become an integral part of everyday life but also an important data source for social science research. Instead of conducting costly surveys or experiments, many research questions can be answered using openly available data and innovative methods. Access to social media data, for example, allows us to measure the attitudes and issue agendas of political actors by analyzing their communication.
Students will acquire valuable research skills including automated web data collection and quantitative text analysis using the statistical software R. These skills will enable students to generate datasets for their own empirical research projects.
Additionally, we will discuss cutting-edge social science applications of these methods to showcase the advantages these methods have to offer for empirical research.
Requirements:
Knowledge of the basics of R and RStudio is an advantage but not a requirement. (See e.g. “The Basics” of R at posit: https://posit.cloud/learn/primers/1). |
