Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research

CHAPTER 1

Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research

Joe Murphy, Craig A. Hill, and Elizabeth Dean,

RTI International

As survey researchers, we have long been concerned about the future of survey research. Beset by problems not of its own making, the survey research discipline faces unprecedented challenges because of declining data quality—stemming from, for example, falling response rates, inadequate sampling frames, and antiquated approaches and tools. Conducting a survey is, at its core, a social interaction between a researcher and a (potential) respondent—a “conversation with a purpose.” The current pace of technological change—and the way people communicate with one another—presages the upheaval of survey research as we know it.

Thus, survey researchers should be—must be—searching for improvements to the way their research is conducted. Survey researchers should be—must be—constantly scanning the landscape of technological and social change, looking for new methods and tools to employ. In this spirit, we have been, somewhat jealously, watching the explosion of social media.

In this book, we introduce the concept of the sociality hierarchy; that is, three “levels” of sociality inherent in the current (and future) state of person-to-person interactions using computing devices: (1) broadcast, (2) conversational, and (3) community. Survey researchers should recognize these levels when attempting to apply new social media tools to survey research. This book presents examples ...