APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017

GRA 6843 Applying Social Media in Management Decisions

Responsible for the course
Christoph Lutz, Christian Fieseler

Department
Department of Communication and Culture

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
(Max 30 students each semester)

Social media have become ubiquitous in the last years. Facebook now has more monthly users than the biggest nation in the world has inhabitants and new platforms and services are popping up weekly. At the same time, research is increasingly investigating social media from a variety of angles – both with classical social science methods such as surveys, interviews and content analysis, and new methods. These new methods include, among others, big data studies of user interactions, sentiment analysis, digital ethnography and the investigation and visualization of geo-spatial data via mapping. Insights from such social media analysis are an increasingly important success factor in today’s business environment.

In this course, the general objective is to provide master students with a solid grasp of the Digital Methods approach, both in theoretical and practical terms. Studying online and social media via a Digital Methods lens allows to come up with innovative new research questions, to develop an own Digital Methods project and to apply specifically developed Digital Methods tools to answer relevant managerial and social questions. The emphasis of the class will be on applications and interpretation of the results from locating and collecting data and analyzing information.

Students are expected to have taken classes in statistics and have working knowledge of MS Excel and SPSS. We expect students to have a solid grasp of the English language as well as a strong interest in the issues at hand, and to actively participate in class.

During the course there will be an intensive study trip to Berlin. Students must be aware that cost for and connected with the trip is not covered by BI Norwegian Business School and students are expected to cover this cost themselves.

Learning outcome

• Participants will obtain an understanding for the role of data and social media in today’s world, and will get acquainted with up-to-date methodology to plan and to frame research questions, both for practical as well as for academic endeavors.
• Participants will learn new approaches of gathering data from online and social media and to extract insights from these data, using sophisticated software-supported techniques such as social network analysis, link analysis and sentiment analysis.
• Strong emphasis will be laid on methodological concerns and a fundamental understanding for the nature of data – combined with hands-on trainings and discussion of tools and sources for insights generation.

• conducting perception studies and identifying key influencers
• using software to analyze Google, Twitter, Facebook and applying social media analytics
• using data to define stakeholder personas
• aggregating and visualizing insights

• developing a critical understanding of current trends in social media development and design, especially regarding the role of machine learning, data science and algorithms
• appreciating the role of both big and small data
• understanding the role of the social sciences in investigating social media and applying model-based and theoretically guided principles to analyze them

1) Introduction: Why Digital Methods?
An overview of the Digital Methods paradigm, and a showcase of current examples in the form of interesting research and company studies. Students will obtain insights into the way of thinking of Digital Methods and get a first grasp of practical questions and challenges that can occur when conducting research with social media.

2) Living in a Data-Rich Society I: Opportunities
In this and the next session, students will get acquainted with some of the consequences of the spread of social media and big data, both in terms of opportunities and challenges. This session, in particular, will focus on new opportunities emerging with social media in different social fields: economic (new business models and ways of managing), political (new avenues for participation and deliberation), social (new opportunities for organizing and consuming, for instance in the context of online dating, Internet-mediated learning and communities of interest).

3) Living in a Data-Rich Society II: Challenges
While the previous session focused on the opportunities, this session will look at some of the specific challenges that come with the spread of social media and big data. Here, we look at issues such as privacy, addiction, discrimination, divides/polarization, cyberbullying and oversharing. The goal of this and the previous session is to reach a balanced view of the current discourses on social media and big data.

4) Theory, Theory, Theory
Students will learn about some current conceptual discussions and useful broad theories to analyze social media from an analytical point-of-view. Some prominent theories we will discuss include: affordances, public spheres and online deliberation, networked individualism.

5) Introduction to Digital Methods Tools I
In this first session on tools, students will get acquainted with tools and approaches to analyze more “traditional” and older structures of the Internet. Specifically, the session covers link analysis and search studies. The Issuecrawler software will be presented as well as the Webometric Analysis toolbox.

6) Introduction to Digital Methods Tools II
The second session on tools deals with approaches to analyze social media. Two methods are of particular interest: social network analysis and sentiment analysis. With sentiment analysis, we will also discuss the topic of social media content analysis more broadly. The students will get acquainted to Gephi for social media analysis, and with Sentistrength for sentiment analysis.

7-10) Project work
In these sessions, students will work hands-on with various new media to learn ways to follow relevant research questions, discovering what different interest groups are taking about, analyzing social media pages, examining friendships and getting to understand web site traffic and interconnectedness. Thus, the tools and methods discussed in the previous session will be put into practice.

11) Project Presentation and Discussions I
The students will present their projects to the group and discuss them critically with the other participants of the course. The main findings, implications and challenges during the research project are addressed, trying to condense the key learning across the groups.

12) Project Presentation and Discussions II
The students will present their projects to the group and discuss them critically with the other participants of the course. The main findings, implications and challenges during the research project are addressed, trying to condense the key learning across the groups.

Computer-based tools


Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.
Issuecrawler, Webometric, Gephi, Sentistrength, brandwatch will be used (no extra costs for the students).

The course aims at combining formal lectures with a case teaching approach. The course will consist of the following elements:

• Formal lectures for basics of the topics and to provide a conceptual framework;
• Case studies for deepening knowledge of the research process, as well as for applying theoretical knowledge to real-world situations;
• Guest lectures by practice experts in order to gain insights in their roles/activities and experiences.
• The course includes a study tour to Berlin.