Facebook Data Ncapture Query
Hi folks, I’m very sorry if I’ve missed a discussion on this before, I’ve checked the archives of the list and have googled the heck out of this issue but I can’t seem to get an answer (the last time I can see Ncapture mentioned on the list was back in 2018). I wonder if anyone here can help. I’m hoping someone can, and I am made to look dumb ☺ Acknowledging all things GDPR and the shut out of various tools to access FB data, Ncapture, which works with NVIVO appears to work, to some degree. Obviously with limitations in the kinds of data it collects. But for my purposes I gives me the basics – particularly the text of posts and the associated comments on public FB pages. What I cannot work out, or find out, is the limitations of the data collected – e.g. on a particular page which posts are collected, which associated comments – all or a selection? It appears just looking through the data to be random, especially when I look at repeat searches. Does anyone have anything they can add to this that might help me? I’m using Grytics for FB groups – which is accurate, but obviously we are dealing with a different kind of thing. I’m wondering if, unless you are the owner of a page, you really have no way of collecting FB page data in a way that is helpful? Cheers in advance for any help people can provide. Best, Ben. Professor Ben Light Associate Dean: Research and Innovation / Professor of Digital Society School of Health and Society / Connected Lives, Diverse Realities Research Group University of Salford, Salford / UK / www.benlight.me
Hi Ben, I actually came across a similar doubt when trying to collect page posts. There was a limitation imposed on Facebook's Graph API back in 2017 and it seems you can only get posts up to a limit of 600 posts per year and there is little documentation on how the returned posts are selected. I am not sure if Ncapture uses Graph API as well, but if it does, it would be subject to the same limitation. I documented what I found about the bias caused by the new limitation here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720905874 I hope this helps. Best regards, Justin On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 11:09, Ben Light <B.Light@salford.ac.uk<mailto:B.Light@salford.ac.uk>> wrote: Hi folks, I’m very sorry if I’ve missed a discussion on this before, I’ve checked the archives of the list and have googled the heck out of this issue but I can’t seem to get an answer (the last time I can see Ncapture mentioned on the list was back in 2018). I wonder if anyone here can help. I’m hoping someone can, and I am made to look dumb ☺ Acknowledging all things GDPR and the shut out of various tools to access FB data, Ncapture, which works with NVIVO appears to work, to some degree. Obviously with limitations in the kinds of data it collects. But for my purposes I gives me the basics – particularly the text of posts and the associated comments on public FB pages. What I cannot work out, or find out, is the limitations of the data collected – e.g. on a particular page which posts are collected, which associated comments – all or a selection? It appears just looking through the data to be random, especially when I look at repeat searches. Does anyone have anything they can add to this that might help me? I’m using Grytics for FB groups – which is accurate, but obviously we are dealing with a different kind of thing. I’m wondering if, unless you are the owner of a page, you really have no way of collecting FB page data in a way that is helpful? Cheers in advance for any help people can provide. Best, Ben. Professor Ben Light Associate Dean: Research and Innovation / Professor of Digital Society School of Health and Society / Connected Lives, Diverse Realities Research Group University of Salford, Salford / UK / www.benlight.me<http://www.benlight.me> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Dear Ben, if Ncapture uses the API, you find more information in the API reference of Facebook, see the section about limitations: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/page/feed/ As Justin said, there are no details, but he did a great job in investigating possible sampling criteria. This issue comes up regularly in the Facebook User group of Facepager. If you want to learn more about the API, you can try it out (FD: I'm a developer there). Best Jakob Am 05.04.2020 um 13:01 schrieb Justin Ho:
Hi Ben,
I actually came across a similar doubt when trying to collect page posts. There was a limitation imposed on Facebook's Graph API back in 2017 and it seems you can only get posts up to a limit of 600 posts per year and there is little documentation on how the returned posts are selected. I am not sure if Ncapture uses Graph API as well, but if it does, it would be subject to the same limitation. I documented what I found about the bias caused by the new limitation here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720905874
I hope this helps.
Best regards, Justin
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 11:09, Ben Light <B.Light@salford.ac.uk<mailto:B.Light@salford.ac.uk>> wrote: Hi folks,
I’m very sorry if I’ve missed a discussion on this before, I’ve checked the archives of the list and have googled the heck out of this issue but I can’t seem to get an answer (the last time I can see Ncapture mentioned on the list was back in 2018). I wonder if anyone here can help. I’m hoping someone can, and I am made to look dumb ☺
Acknowledging all things GDPR and the shut out of various tools to access FB data, Ncapture, which works with NVIVO appears to work, to some degree. Obviously with limitations in the kinds of data it collects. But for my purposes I gives me the basics – particularly the text of posts and the associated comments on public FB pages.
What I cannot work out, or find out, is the limitations of the data collected – e.g. on a particular page which posts are collected, which associated comments – all or a selection? It appears just looking through the data to be random, especially when I look at repeat searches. Does anyone have anything they can add to this that might help me? I’m using Grytics for FB groups – which is accurate, but obviously we are dealing with a different kind of thing.
I’m wondering if, unless you are the owner of a page, you really have no way of collecting FB page data in a way that is helpful?
Cheers in advance for any help people can provide.
Best, Ben.
Professor Ben Light Associate Dean: Research and Innovation / Professor of Digital Society School of Health and Society / Connected Lives, Diverse Realities Research Group University of Salford, Salford / UK / www.benlight.me<http://www.benlight.me>
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Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Jakob Jünger University of Greifswald Institute of Political Science and Communication Studies Ernst-Lohmeyer-Platz 3 17487 Greifswald Germany Room: 3.16 (3. floor) Email: jakob.juenger@uni-greifswald.de Phone : +49 3834 420 3444 or +49 173 860 8056 Web: http://www.ipk.uni-greifswald.de/
Thank you so much Justin, that’s incredibly helpful. I’ll be sure to pass on your work too! Cheers, Ben. From: Justin Ho <Justin.Ho@ed.ac.uk> Date: Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 12:02 To: Ben Light <B.Light@salford.ac.uk>, "air-l@listserv.aoir.org" <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Facebook Data Ncapture Query Hi Ben, I actually came across a similar doubt when trying to collect page posts. There was a limitation imposed on Facebook's Graph API back in 2017 and it seems you can only get posts up to a limit of 600 posts per year and there is little documentation on how the returned posts are selected. I am not sure if Ncapture uses Graph API as well, but if it does, it would be subject to the same limitation. I documented what I found about the bias caused by the new limitation here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720905874<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Ffull%2F10.1177%2F2053951720905874&data=02%7C01%7CB.Light%40salford.ac.uk%7C1ec4fd8ebddc49b6baac08d7d950c7c7%7C65b52940f4b641bd833d3033ecbcf6e1%7C0%7C0%7C637216813283656507&sdata=V4rL8LmVhdZQgLilxxErSV9bNqWX%2B%2Fh6aijx07V6vnc%3D&reserved=0> I hope this helps. Best regards, Justin On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 11:09, Ben Light <B.Light@salford.ac.uk<mailto:B.Light@salford.ac.uk>> wrote: Hi folks, I’m very sorry if I’ve missed a discussion on this before, I’ve checked the archives of the list and have googled the heck out of this issue but I can’t seem to get an answer (the last time I can see Ncapture mentioned on the list was back in 2018). I wonder if anyone here can help. I’m hoping someone can, and I am made to look dumb ☺ Acknowledging all things GDPR and the shut out of various tools to access FB data, Ncapture, which works with NVIVO appears to work, to some degree. Obviously with limitations in the kinds of data it collects. But for my purposes I gives me the basics – particularly the text of posts and the associated comments on public FB pages. What I cannot work out, or find out, is the limitations of the data collected – e.g. on a particular page which posts are collected, which associated comments – all or a selection? It appears just looking through the data to be random, especially when I look at repeat searches. Does anyone have anything they can add to this that might help me? I’m using Grytics for FB groups – which is accurate, but obviously we are dealing with a different kind of thing. I’m wondering if, unless you are the owner of a page, you really have no way of collecting FB page data in a way that is helpful? Cheers in advance for any help people can provide. Best, Ben. Professor Ben Light Associate Dean: Research and Innovation / Professor of Digital Society School of Health and Society / Connected Lives, Diverse Realities Research Group University of Salford, Salford / UK / www.benlight.me<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.benlight.me%2F&data=02%7C01%7CB.Light%40salford.ac.uk%7C1ec4fd8ebddc49b6baac08d7d950c7c7%7C65b52940f4b641bd833d3033ecbcf6e1%7C0%7C0%7C637216813283666503&sdata=E3Qh39FL5SwTub5gcL1NAzn1ZoXZ9mjD6Sy6r1tuO%2FE%3D&reserved=0> _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org<mailto:Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faoir.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7CB.Light%40salford.ac.uk%7C1ec4fd8ebddc49b6baac08d7d950c7c7%7C65b52940f4b641bd833d3033ecbcf6e1%7C0%7C0%7C637216813283666503&sdata=VwGd9JYcSacYm%2BtV99XWcwicU4wvgqMoDnqdf6a7%2Fn8%3D&reserved=0> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistserv.aoir.org%2Flistinfo.cgi%2Fair-l-aoir.org&data=02%7C01%7CB.Light%40salford.ac.uk%7C1ec4fd8ebddc49b6baac08d7d950c7c7%7C65b52940f4b641bd833d3033ecbcf6e1%7C0%7C0%7C637216813283676502&sdata=VATAkkDf3lXcKFdAZ8rZ3Z48oBbNo3GJp%2Byyvi4z1c8%3D&reserved=0> Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aoir.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7CB.Light%40salford.ac.uk%7C1ec4fd8ebddc49b6baac08d7d950c7c7%7C65b52940f4b641bd833d3033ecbcf6e1%7C0%7C0%7C637216813283676502&sdata=MZAX5n1%2Bmwf1R3dixIXaRTbpPvMXD%2BZyw9rTzcn5HYY%3D&reserved=0> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
participants (3)
-
Ben Light -
Jakob Jünger -
Justin Ho