Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

NB:

(only physical presence in class is required to take the lab)

This lab module aims to introduce students to Social and Web Media Monitoring, a discipline in high demand in virtually every aspect of communication and marketing.

The first means of moving into this world are provided. The aim is to introduce students, with a practical slant, to the retrieval, analysis and extraction of meaning from large quantities of data from the main Social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc.), in compliance with usage policies and privacy regulations.

Specifically, it is intended to:

- Literate students in statistical language analysis and some software that facilitates it (R, t-lab, taltac2, etc.);

- Train them in the use of techniques for visualising large quantities of semantic data and the online services that enable this.

More generally, the module introduces the methodological preparation provided by the - optional but strongly recommended - related course (Digital Methods CPS 0666) and aims to begin to link the skills of sociological analysis of social phenomena related to ICT solutions addressed in the degree course.

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of this laboratory module, you will know

the basic concepts of social research applied to the analysis of digital semantic data
the stages of retrieval and cleaning of digital semantic datasets
a small compendium of algebraic and statistical notions necessary to orient oneself in the analysis of digital semantic data

ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of this laboratory module, you will be able to

identify the distinct steps involved in retrieving digital semantic data from public online sources
import digital semantic data into software that allows its analysis, following the construction of a text corpus
cleaning and normalising the corpus thus obtained
use the syntax of specialised software to begin the statistical analysis of the corpus

AUTONOMY OF JUDGEMENT

At the end of the module, you will be able to make a judgement on these

limits and opportunities of social research with large amounts of digital semantic data

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

At the end of the lab module, you will master

a specialised vocabulary derived from social research applied to semantic data

LEARNING SKILLS

At the end of this lab module, you will have the ability to approach in an introductory but not naive way the study of some of the ways of designing and implementing social research based on digital semantic data.

Each lesson - strictly in-presence - is structured on the mixed model of learning-by-doing. The standard lesson time (3 hours) will be subdivided from time to time into
- theoretical and methodological parts referring to media content analysis;
- exercises to acquire familiarity with some free analytics platforms (with the support of a tutor present in the classroom together with the lecturer).

Each student will have to carry out a small project, simulating the various stages of research on online semantic data covered in the lessons.

The project must be carried out according to the methods shared in the classroom at the start of the lab.

NB: the exercise, practice and group work will start from the first lesson and will be across the following topics:

minimum alignment of social research methodology
overview of specialised software for semantic analysis of digital data
assembling a corpus
introduction to the quantitative analysis of a corpus

Lecture notes and materials made available on Moodle.