{"id":160,"date":"2008-08-28T07:24:10","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T13:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/?p=160"},"modified":"2008-08-28T07:24:10","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T13:24:10","slug":"twitter-as-a-sampling-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/2008\/08\/28\/twitter-as-a-sampling-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter as a Sampling Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you Twitter<\/a>?\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter is a microblogging software that allows you to post short updates, just 140 characters, in answer to the question: What are you doing?\u00a0 The updates that people add to Twitter are called “tweets.”\u00a0 You can choose to “follow” people, that is read their tweets.\u00a0 And, people can choose to “follow” you, or read your updates.<\/p>\n

I know, I know.\u00a0 Another web application to update, what a pain.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought so at first, too.\u00a0 But Twitter continues to surprise me in its usefulness.\u00a0\u00a0 I follow<\/a> a range of people from Barack Obama<\/a> to friends<\/a> to people I don’t know offline but who post really interesting updates<\/a>. \u00a0 The most useful tweets are those that include links to other websites, so it’s one of the main ways I stay informed about breaking news these days.<\/p>\n

And, I predict that Twitter is going to have increasing significance as a tool in sociological research.\u00a0\u00a0 Just last week, for example, I posted a short announcement about a new research project<\/a> I’m doing for which I need a very specific set of respondents: feminist bloggers.\u00a0 So, I posted an update on Twitter that I was looking for (at least) forty feminist bloggers to interview. \u00a0 \u00a0 A feminist blogger I follow on Twitter re-posted, or “retweeted,” my call to her<\/em> network of followers, then posted it on her blog.<\/p>\n

A week later I have responses to my quick online survey from twenty<\/em> feminist bloggers and follow-up (face-to-face and phone) interviews scheduled with 15 of those.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s nearly half my sample in a week.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, I’m considering revising the total sample size upward.<\/p>\n

It’s not a representative sample, to be sure, but it is a solid “snowball” sample and a perfectly fine sampling strategy for qualitative research.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter as sampling strategy simply means that the “old” way of snowball sampling, by asking respondents and key informants to recommend people, is now being mediated – and speeded up – through online networks. \u00a0 \u00a0 This morning, I’m off for my first in person, face-to-face qualitative interview for this research project. \u00a0 All arranged via the “snowball” sampling strategy for the digital era: Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you Twitter?\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter is a microblogging software that allows you to post short updates, just 140 characters, in answer to the question: What are you doing?\u00a0 The updates that people add to Twitter are called “tweets.”\u00a0 You can choose to “follow” people, that is read their tweets.\u00a0 And, people can choose to “follow” you, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[431,558,184],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-research","tag-sampling","tag-twitter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/contech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}