Chances and Challenges of Computational Data Gathering and Analysis

Digital and social media and large available data-sets generate various new possibilities and challenges for conducting research focused on perpetually developing online news ecosystems. This paper presents a novel computational technique for gathering and processing large quantities of data from Facebook. We demonstrate how to use this technique for detecting and analysing issue-attention cycles and news flows in Facebook groups and pages. Although the paper concentrates on a Finnish Facebook group as a case study, the demonstrated method can be used for gathering and analysing large sets of data from various social network sites and national contexts. The paper also discusses Facebook pla…