Drawing on the methodological and content-related elements of the seminar, the seminar paper is the report of a research project and analysis of social media data developed by each students group;
The seminar paper has to be developed and submitted as a group of 3 students;
The scope of the seminar paper is 13500 words (without the bibliography or annexes);
A short paper describing your ideas and methodology (3000 words) has to be submitted until the end of the semester (last session). The final paper must be submitted until the end of the spring break.
Objective and focus
The research project should adhere to the following principles:
Operationalize a critical perspective towards social media data and analysis, building on the conceptual literature discussed in the seminar (Marres and Moats 2015; Agre 1997)
The project should adhere to the following characteristics:
Topical focus: climate change-related social media debates
Data source: data collected from post-video discussions on YouTube
Methodology: ML pipeline introduced in the seminar supporting the interpretative analysis of social media data
Open request, research projects can deviate from one of these directives (topical focus, data source, methodology). Such deviation has to be discussed and confirmed by one of the seminar instructors.
However, you are very welcome to combine these characteristics with additional features (e.g. comparison of YouTube data and data from another digital platform, ML pipeline and other method, climate change and additional thematic area, further metadata prvided by YouTube Data tools).
Structure of the seminar paper
The seminar paper should include the following text elements:
Introduction and related work
Research question
Here, you specify the research question for the project.
Methodology
Describe the data, methods and technologies used in the project.
Results
Describe the results of the analysis achieved during the project.
Discussion
Discuss the insights from the analysis on a higher level.
Conclusion, limitations and outlook
Discuss the limitations of your study and propose directions for future research.
It is recommended to get inspiration from an existing published academic paper and to replicate major elements from it. The seminar literature provides multiple examples for convenient papers to draw on.
General guidelines
Objective and focus The research project should adhere to the following principles:
Structure of the seminar paper
The seminar paper should include the following text elements:
Introduction and related work
Research question Here, you specify the research question for the project.
Methodology Describe the data, methods and technologies used in the project.
Results Describe the results of the analysis achieved during the project.
Discussion Discuss the insights from the analysis on a higher level.
Conclusion, limitations and outlook Discuss the limitations of your study and propose directions for future research.
It is recommended to get inspiration from an existing published academic paper and to replicate major elements from it. The seminar literature provides multiple examples for convenient papers to draw on.