Dear all, as promised, here is a summary of the answers I got on my request for help with getting data from Facebook. First of all, various people responded that there doesn´t seem to be an ideal way of getting big chunks of Facebook data in a three-year period, as we want to do. As Bernhard Rieder himself argued in a recent post, "Facebook is a nasty thing to study. It is much more complicated – in terms of interface, architecture, features, etc. – than Twitter for example. It has a lot of users and different types of interaction spaces. It is rather easy to extract a lot of data from it, particularly for companies creating apps and focusing on individual users and their network neighborhoods – but it is really difficult to get any kind of macro view" ( http://thepoliticsofsystems.net/). However, several very generous and nice people responded with the following suggestions: 1. That I contact Bernhard Rieder directly and ask for a way around netvizz limitations on numbers of posts. However, one person argued that he is way too busy to answer emails, and I am guessing that´s probably true. 2. That I use NodeXL and the Social Network Importer to get data from Facebook pages and groups. This was actually a great suggestion, because, as one person argued, it has the possibility of defining specific periods. So while I am still unable to get all the data I want, I can get posts (and interactions) from specific periods in time. 3. That I use Discovertext. They have a trial version that can be used for a limited amount of time (and data), but other than that you have to pay. 4. That I get "admin" access from administrators of fanpages. We have actually been pursuing that option. Again, it does not give us the information we want, but the metrics available as admin are very useful in better understanding how organizations (in our case) use Facebook, as well as the types of interactions they allow. As one person pointed out, though, we have to pay attention to the differences between interacting in fanpages and in Facebook groups. To sum up: no ideal way of getting Facebook data through long periods of time, but several partial ways that can help us build the larger picture. Of course interviews with administrators and users can also be key, depending on the research questions. In our case, interviews definitely make a lot of sense and we have so far over 40 interviews with student leaders. Thanks again for all the help, folks! I will keep you posted as this research project moves on. Marisa On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Marisa von Bülow <marisavonbulow@gmail.com

wrote:

Dear all,

I head a research project on the Internet and social movement activism. More specifically, we are doing a research on the uses of different Internet platforms by the student movement in Chile. We are currently setting up the project webpage, and as soon as it is ready I will let you know, so those of you who might be interested can access more detailed information on the project, including preliminary results.

One of the main goals of our project is to analyze how the uses of these platforms have changed through time, more specifically between the beginning of 2011 and the end of 2013. We are also interested in understanding the differences in uses of the various social network sites (for deliberation, information sharing, protest coordination, etc.), and in better understanding their impacts on the relationship between the leadership and the students in general.

The reason for this message is that we are struggling to define a research strategy to gather Facebook data (fanpages, groups and events). So far we have been able to do social network analysis with Twitter data, and we have also been looking into YouTube and the use of webpages and blogs. We are also beginning to do content analysis with posts (using Nvivo). About Facebook, we are wondering if any of you have had experience using netvizz. We want to get data on how well connected the fanpages of the students´ organizations are among themselves, and other types of social network data. However, netvizz limits the access to the past 999 posts, which is a serious limitation to us, because, as explained above, we are interested in going back to 2011.

Would you know of other options, besides netvizz? Any other tips?

I am very grateful for your help! If you wish, please answer at marisavonbulow@gmail.com, and I will organize all the answers and share them with the list. Also, I can send anyone interested more details about this research project.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Marisa

-- Marisa von Bülow Professora Adjunto III/Professor Instituto de Ciência Política/Political Science Institute IPOL - UnB/University of Brasilia Researcher Instituto de Ciencia Política PUC-Chile 56-2-3547826

-- Marisa von Bülow Professora Adjunto III/Professor Instituto de Ciência Política/Political Science Institute IPOL - UnB/University of Brasilia Researcher Instituto de Ciencia Política PUC-Chile 56-2-3547826