I am pleased to announce the publication of the Social Media Methods Workbook (Routledge) that I wrote with Anna Feigenbaum. The idea for this book came from a need for an introductory methods book that will help students at the beginning of their research journey, help them understand how to approach social media research as a whole and the most common methodologies that exist within this field. There are many incredible books that provide everything one needs to know about their method of choice; this book isn't that and its aim isn't to replace those. Our aim is to equip students and researchers new to social media research with a foundational understanding of how to approach, think about and design social media research projects. The book features contributions from several names in the AoIR community answering questions about their know-how of a method of choice and their best tips to succeed or fail better 🙂

We have already used this book in teaching methods courses to great success, and we hope you do too!

Here is the official blurb:

The Social Media Methods Workbook offers an innovative, easy-to-follow, hands-on guide for navigating your social media research projects. Whether you want to evaluate advocacy strategies or understand social media users' political beliefs, this creative workbook will prepare you to develop research questions, project aims, conceptual frameworks, and methodologies to answer them.

Bringing together both established and innovative methods from across the growing field of social media studies, this friendly workbook is filled with practical exercises and activities that provide interactive training materials for independent learning, teaching, and professional development. Through 'spotlight' research design case studies and researcher interviews, the workbook shares insider stories to help you navigate challenges, come up with creative solutions, reflect on issues of ethics and data privacy, and deliver your own original insights into this exciting field.

This accessible introduction to the breadth of online tools, resources, and specialised methodological approaches is ideal for students of social media and media and communication studies more generally, offering everything you need to plan and execute successful social media research projects.