Big Data Meets Survey Science

2The Future Is Now: How Surveys Can Harness Social Media to Address Twenty‐first Century Challenges

Amelia Burke‐Garcia¹, Brad Edwards², and Ting Yan²

¹NORC, University of Chicago, Bethesda, MD, USA

²Westat, Rockville, MD, USA

2.1 Introduction

This century has brought tremendous social and economic shifts with major global implications. Mass migration and population displacement have made populations more mobile and harder to reach than ever. The general decline in trust in most institutions hinders populations from participating in civic activities. These trends have made all populations increasingly difficult to survey in this new world (Brick and Williams 2013; Curtin, Presser, and Singer 2005; De Heer and De Leeuw 2002; Egley 2002; Tourangeau et al. 2014; Uslaner and Brown 2005).

One of the more powerful shifts that has occurred – with the potential to greatly affect survey research operations – is the acceleration of technological advances. The ubiquitous use of mobile phones and the advent of online social networks, specifically social media, are drastically increasing the speed and scale of communication globally.

Since its inception, social media has generally been considered purely as a channel of communication, similar to the written word or the telephone. We argue that it has become much more than that: the Internet age has brought an increasing share of our entire lives online. For example, in the 60 seconds it might take to read this paragraph, Americans will have ...