SODAS Lecture with Sebastian Stier

Title: Unlocking Digital Behavioral Data: New User-Centered Approaches for Social Science Research

Abstract: Following the shutdown of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) by online platforms, social science research relying on platform data has largely come to a standstill. However, the “post-API” age also presents opportunities for innovation and the development of more robust, quality-assured data collection strategies in computational social science. Researchers are increasingly adopting user-centered data collection approaches, in which participants are recruited and provide informed consent for the collection of longitudinal digital behavioral data in combination with (panel) surveys. The key advantage of such research designs is their ability to capture authentic, in-context user behavior as it naturally unfolds, while also enabling the study of individual-level determinants and consequences of digital behavior with established survey instruments. While the advantages of user-centered data collections are evident, implementing such research designs also poses significant challenges such as consent bias, skewed participant samples and technical hurdles. This talk will present advances in user-centered approaches using several research examples from the field of political communication.