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Social Media The Research Process According to the text, the research process follows a set of four steps including: hypothesize, operationalize, measure, and explain. 1. Locate a study through the Ashford University library and apply it to the research process. For help on finding research article through the library, watch the  Searching Techniques: Proquest (Links to an external site.)  and  Searching Techniques: EBSCOhost (Links to an external site.)  videos. 2. Define whether the study you found is a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods design study. 3. Identify the hypotheses or research questions (qualitative studies only include research questions). 4. Briefly define the independent and dependent variables in measurable terms. 5. Discuss how the data was collected and provide a brief review of the findings/results. 6. Describe how the research process can apply to other situations and whether you think the research process is useful for all research problems. Your post should be at least 300 words. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ postings, noting specific advantages of using a systematic approach to work through research problems. Snelson, C. L. (2016). Qualitative and Mixed Methods Social Media Research: A Review of the Literature. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 15(1), 1–15. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.1177/1609406915624574 Special Issue Qualitative and Mixed Methods Social Media Research: A Review of the Literature Chareen L. Snelson 1 Abstract Social media technologies have attracted substantial attention among many types of users including researchers who have published studies for several years. This article presents an overview of trends in qualitative and mixed methods social media research literature published from 2007 through 2013. A collection of 229 qualitative studies were identified through a systematic literature review process. A subset of 55 of these articles report studies involving a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Articles were reviewed, analyzed, and coded through a qualitative content analysis approach. Overall trends are presented with respect to the entire collection of articles followed by an analysis of mixed methods research approaches identified in the subset of 55 studies. The most commonly used research approaches involved collecting data from people through interview, focus group, and survey methodologies. Content analysis was the second most commonly used approach whereby researchers use Facebook posts, Tweets (Twitter posts), YouTube videos, or other social media content as a data source. Many of the studies involving combinations of quantitative and qualitative data followed a design resembling Creswell and Plano Clark’s basic mixed methods typology (e.g., convergent parallel, explanatory sequential, and exploratory sequential). Keywords social media research, Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mixed methods, qualitative This article presents a descriptive methodological analysis of qualitative and mixed methods approaches for social media research. It is based on a systematic review of 229 qualitative or mixed methods research articles published from 2007 through 2013 where social media played a central role. Publi- cation trends are presented for the entire set of articles followed by analysis of a subset of 55 studies that combined qualitative and quantitative approaches consistent with an established mixed methods typology (Creswell, 2014; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). The literature analysis is first contextualized by presenting a brief overview of related scholarly activity in the emerging field of social media research. This is followed by a discussion of publication trends and methodologies applied in this systematic literature review. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as ‘‘ . . . a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideolo- gical and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content’’ (p. 61). The emergence of social media technologies has been embraced by a growing number of users who post text mes- sages, pictures, and videos online (Duggan, 2013; Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & Madden, 2015). Reports of world- wide social networking activity suggest that there were 1.96 billion users in 2015 with predictions of 2.44 billion users by 2018 (Statista, 2015). Of all the social networking sites, Face- book, Twitter, and YouTube are among the most popular rank- ing within the top 10 of a list of most heavily visited sites on the web (Alexa, 2015). The combination of prolific user activity and production of user-generated content has captured the attention of scholars and researchers who seek to understand social media and its role in contemporary society. Considerable attention has been given to social media research as evidenced by the expanding literature base and growing number of comprehensive literature reviews, which have been conducted to explore various facets of social media research and scholarship. A matrix summary of 20 social media literature reviews published from 2011 through early 2014 is provided in Table 1. Although not a comprehensive list, each of 1 Department of Educational Technology, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA Corresponding Author: Chareen L. Snelson, Department of Educational Technology, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725, USA. Email: [email protected] International Journal of Qualitative Methods January-December 2016: 1–15 ª The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1609406915624574 ijqm.sagepub.com Creative Commons CC-BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). the articles in Table 1 represents a systematic literature review with the methodology for sampling and analysis clearly described by the author(s). The range of topics covered across the collection of literature review works reveals some of the diversity in emphasis and fields of study from which the works emerge. Some authors have focused on categorization of trends in academic literature related to specific social media platforms such as Facebook (Błachnio, Przepiórka, & Rudnicka, 2013; Caers et al., 2013; Hew, 2011; Manca & Ranieri, 2013; Nad- karni & Hofmann, 2012; Wilson, Gosling, & Graham, 2012), Twitter (Dhir, Buragga, & Boreqqah, 2013; Williams, Terras, & Warwick, 2013), or YouTube (Snelson, 2011). Other studies are grounded within a particular subject or field of study to examine social media as it relates to topics such as adolescent well-being (Best, Manktelow, & Taylor, 2014), health-care professionals (Hamm et al., 2013), type 1 diabetes (Jones, Sin- clair, Holt, & Barnard, 2013), tourism and hospitality (Leung, Law, van Hoof, & Buhalis, 2013), or prediction of real-world events (Kalampokis, Tambouris, & Tarabanis, 2013). The prior literature reviews listed in Table 1 indicate that much has already been covered on the subject of trends in social media literature. Yet, there is little information about trends in qualitative and mixed methods approaches to social media research. Prior literature reviews have included discus- sions of trends in research approaches but have provided a more global classification of general trends (e.g., Best et al., Table 1. Systematic Literature Reviews on Social Media Topics. Author(s) Emphasis of Review Field(s) of Studya Articles/Papers Reviewed Best, Manktelow, and Taylor (2014) Research on the effects of social networking on adolescent well-being Sociology, social work, and social studies 43 Błachnio, Przepiórka, and Rudnicka (2013) Research focusing on the role of psychological traits in explaining Facebook use Psychology 59 Caers et al. (2013) Peer-reviewed articles and papers on Facebook published between 2006 and 2012 that focus on personality of users Psychology and economics 114 Dhir, Buragga, and Boreqqah (2013) Empirical, conceptual, and theoretical studies on Twitter and its use in education Education 43 Gholami-Kordkheili, Wild, and Strech (2013) Research, commentaries, editorials, and opinion papers on medical professionalism and social media Health care and medical 108 Hamm et al. (2013) Research on social media use by health-care professionals or trainees published between 2000 and 2012 Health care and medical 96 Hew (2011) Research focusing on the use of Facebook by students and teachers Education 36 Jones, Sinclair, Holt, and Barnard (2013) Research on the use of social networking to discuss the risks of Type 1 diabetes mellitus Health care and medical 6 Kalampokis, Tambouris, and Tarabanis (2013) Research where social media data were used to predict real- world phenomena Information systems 52 Khan (2012) Research on social media systems published 2003 to 2011 Information systems 274 Khang, Ki, and Ye (2012) Social media research trends in four disciplines (advertising, communication, marketing, and public relations) published 1997–2010 Advertising, communication, marketing, and public relations 436 Leung, Law, van Hoof, and Buhalis (2013) Social media–related research articles in tourism and hospitality published between 2007 and 2010 Tourism and hospitality 44 Manca and Ranieri (2013) Research with a focus on Facebook as a learning environment Education 23 Nadkarni and Hofmann (2012) Research on the psychological factors contributing to Facebook use Psychology 42 Park and Calamaro (2013) Studies where social network sites are used for recruitment, intervention, or measurement in health research of adolescents and young adults Health care, medical, and nursing 17 Snelson (2011) Trends in academic literature about YouTube published between 2006 and 2009 Interdisciplinary 188 Van Osch and Coursaris (2014) Social media research productivity based on journal articles and conference proceedings from October 2004 to 2011 Interdisciplinary 610 Williams, Terras, and Warwick (2013) Twitter and microblogging research published from 2007 to 2011 Interdisciplinary 575 Wilson, Gosling, and Graham (2012) Trends in research on Facebook Social science 412 Zhang and Leung (2014) Social networking research published in six high-ranking communication journals from 2006 to 2011 Communication 84 a Information in the Field(s) of Study column is based primarily on statement of purpose and content focus of each literature review article. 2 International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2014; Hamm et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2013; Williams et al., 2013). This literature review serves to expand the knowledge base regarding how qualitative and mixed methods have been applied to social media research. There are several reasons why this might be important. Social media research is a relatively new field of study that has emerged in conjunction with the develop- ment of social media technologies and the upsurge in their use (Duggan et al., 2015). Little is known about how many qualitative and mixed methods social media studies have been published, where they originate, or which academic journals publish them. Furthermore, trends in the selection of research design, data col- lection techniques, and analytic approaches are not well known. The potential value of examining trends in the use of qua- litative research approaches (e.g., interview, focus group, and qualitative content analysis) lies in uncovering how researchers design studies to gain insights into how and why people engage with social media as well as the meaning that is attached to experiences with social media. For example, Fox, Warber, and Makstaller (2013) collected data from mixed-sex focus groups to help them answer questions about the role of Facebook in romantic relationship development. In another study, Greene, Choudhry, Kilabuk, and Shrank (2011) conducted a qualitative evaluation of posts from Facebook communities dedicated to diabetes to reveal how patients, family members, and friends share information and receive emotional support. Mixed methods research approaches ‘‘in which the researcher gathers both quantitative (closed-ended) and quali- tative (open-ended) data, integrates the two and then draws interpretations based on the combined strengths of both sets of data to understand research problems’’ (Creswell, 2014, p. 2) also have potential value in social media research. For example, Morgan, Snelson, and Elison-Bowers (2010) used qua- litative analysis of social media content together with a survey to uncover patterns of behavior and attitudes regarding depictions of alcohol and marijuana use by young adults on social media websites. As another example, Vyas, Landry, Schnider, Rojas, and Wood (2012) combined a survey with follow-up interviews to examine short message services and social media use among Latino youth and the potential role of these services as methods of communication in public health programs. These examples illustrate the potential of qualitative and mixed methods research approaches to uncover new insights through the complimentary combination of methods. Yet, the question of how researchers have been applying these approaches in social media studies has not been explored in depth. What this literature review contributes is a summary of general trends in qualitative research studies together with a more in-depth analysis of mixed methods approaches for social media research. The overarching research questions guiding this systematic literature review study were: � What are the overall trends in qualitative and mixed methods social media research? � To what extent does the design of mixed methods social media studies align to an established typology for mixed methods research? Method The central aim of this literature review was to identify trends in qualitative and mixed methods approaches used in the emer- gent field of social media research. The review is descriptive and follows an integrative synthesis approach, which ‘‘attempts to summarize the contents of multiple studies and minimizes any interpretation on the part of the reviewer’’ (Harden & Thomas, 2010, p. 752). The unit of analysis was a peer- reviewed journal article reporting the results of a qualitative or mixed methods research study where social media played a central role. The scope of the literature review was limited to articles published from 2007 through 2013. The reason for the initial cutoff was that literature in the years before 2007 was scant, given that social media is a relatively new phenomenon. According to company websites, Facebook was invented in 2004 (Facebook, 2015), YouTube in 2005 (YouTube, 2015), and Twitter in 2006 (Twitter, 2015). A previous literature review on YouTube scholarship indicated that publications began to appear in 2006, but no research studies were published prior to 2007 (Snelson, 2011). Williams, Terras, and Warwick (2013) selected 2007 as a starting point for their literature review of Twitter and microblogging research because that is when the first papers began to appear. Facebook research was published as early as 2005 (Wilson et al., 2012) but seems to have started building momentum in 2007. Therefore, the deci- sion was made to set the initial cutoff at 2007 with a final cutoff of 2013, which was the last full year before the review was conducted in 2014. Peer-reviewed journal articles were selected and analyzed through a systematic process consistent with the prior litera- ture review studies listed in Table 1. Selection and analysis of articles proceeded through a series of the four stages illu- strated in Figure 1. Stage 1: Presearch During the presearch phase, key words and databases were selected based on a combination of (a) strategies used in prior literature reviews and (b) test searches with candidate key words, filters, and databases. Some of the prior literature reviews focused on specific social media platforms (e.g., Face- book, Twitter, and YouTube), whereas others investigated cer- tain aspects of social media usage or content regardless of platform. The present study integrates a combination of both platform-specific and general search phrases to explore an array of studies involving single or multiple types of social media. The key words used were Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, social media, and social networking. Each of these search phrases has been used in at least one prior literature review. Many of the prior social media literature reviews were grounded in a particular field of study. Searches were con- ducted in combinations of databases, which sometimes included databases indexing literature specific to the field (e.g., PubMed for medical-related literature reviews). The present literature review is interdisciplinary with a focus on Snelson 3 trends in research methodology regardless of discipline. Therefore, searches were conducted exclusively in the fol- lowing multidisciplinary databases, which have all been used in prior literature reviews: Academic Search Premier, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Together, they offer substantial and complementary access to the academic literature from multiple disciplines. Stage 2: Search The search was conducted in January 2014 for articles pub- lished from 2007 through 2013 that had bibliographic entries available in the selected databases. The specific strategy for searching each of the databases (Academic Search Premier, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) is outlined here in detail to make them replicable for other researchers. Academic Search Premier and Web of Science involved a key word search conducted in a similar manner. Each of the search phrases, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, ‘‘social media,’’ and ‘‘social networking,’’ were entered one at a time in a series of searches. Filers were applied with each round of searches to retrieve peer-reviewed articles where the search phrase was contained in the title. For example, the search for Facebook articles was set to retrieve peer-reviewed articles with Face- book in the title. Search results were exported directly from each database in batches to the online version of EndNote (Thompson Reuters, 2014a). At the time of searching, Aca- demic Search Premier permitted export of 100 citations per batch and Web of Science permitted export of 500 citations per batch. All citations from each round of searches were exported in batches until all of the results were copied into EndNote online. Google Scholar was included as one of the databases searched for during this literature review due to its broad reach across interdisciplinary academic scholarship indexed on the Internet and its use in prior literature review studies (see Błachnio et al., 2013; Dhir et al., 2013; Kalampokis et al., 2013; Williams et al., 2013; Wilson et al., 2012). Unfortu- nately, Google Scholar has certain limitations. Williams et al. (2013) searched Google Scholar for their literature review of academic work related to Twitter but acknowledged the lack of control over search fields and results containing many works unrelated to the purpose of their research. An additional issue is the sheer volume of results that might appear in a Google Scholar search. Researchers might not have the time or resources to sort through thousands of results to find articles matching inclusion criteria for articles. Furthermore, Google limits access to the first 1,000 search results (see Google, 2015), thereby making it impossible to access all of the results. This limitation can be verified by clicking through to the last page of a large set of search results. The limitations with Google Scholar necessitated a modified search strategy to obtain a manageable set of results that yielded relevant articles not found through searches of Aca- demic Search Premier and Web of Science. The lack of control over search fields acknowledged by Williams et al. (2013) was addressed by appending additional key words to restrict results to relevant articles. As previously explained, the unit of anal- ysis was a peer-reviewed journal article reporting the results of a qualitative or mixed methods research study where social media played a central role. Therefore, the search phrases were adjusted to target both the type of social media and the type of design in each round of searches. For example, the search for Facebook literature was conducted in two rounds, with the search phrase Facebook qualitative used in the first round fol- lowed by Facebook mixed method in the second round. A sim- ilar approach was used to search for literature on Twitter, YouTube, social media, and social networking articles. This targeted search produced a manageable results list but pro- duced only eight relevant articles that were not already found in the Academic Search Premier and Web of Science databases. Google Scholar ultimately served as an ancillary search tool that produced a few additional articles, but, in this particular case, it created the problematic decision of whether to choose (a) too many results that were labor-intensive to review and could not be fully accessed or (b) a restrictive search that might have limited the results to a narrower scope than desired. The restrictive search option, although not ideal, was selected due to its feasibility. Other researchers are encouraged to consider the limitations of Google Scholar prior to using it to obtain literature for a systematic review. The process of removing duplicate citations was conducted after the searches were complete and citations had been imported into the online version of EndNote (Thompson Reu- ters, 2014a). First, the duplicate removal tool was used to iden- tify as many duplicates as possible that had been imported from the different databases. This was followed by manual inspec- tion of the citations to remove additional duplicates that had not been entered into the databases in the same way. For example, the author name or title might have been entered differently in one database as compared to the others. The citations were Figure 1. Stages in the literature review process. 4 International Journal of Qualitative Methods combined into a single group (minus duplicates), leaving a total of 3,322 unique article citations. Stage 3: Data Cleaning Abstracts and full-text copies of the articles were reviewed to determine eligibility for analysis. Articles were selected if they met the following criteria: (a) the study applied qualitative research methodology or mixed methods research with a qua- litative research component, (b) the study emphasized online social media, (c) the article was published in a peer-reviewed journal, and (d) a full-text English copy of the article was available. A total of 229 studies met the criteria with a subset of 55 of these studies involving both qualitative and quantita- tive (i.e., mixed) methods. Stage 4: Analysis A qualitative content analysis methodology, based on Schre- ier’s (2012) approach, was used to structure the review and analysis of the literature. Qualitative content analysis is a descriptive research method involving development of a cod- ing frame and qualitative coding of data. The coding frame was both concept driven (defined in advance) and data driven (derived from data during coding) as described by Schreier. Essentially, the concept-driven part of the coding frame was designed to classify studies according to research design (qua- litative and mixed methods) and social media emphasized in the research. The data-driven portion of the coding frame came primarily from tagging and coding articles based on research approaches used in the study, as will be discussed momentarily. A single researcher conducted the present study; therefore, a multiphase approach was taken to review the content at differ- ent points in time and to cross-check results for consistency. The articles had all been reviewed for eligibility for the study during the data-cleaning stage, but the actual analysis of con- tent began with a round of review and tagging using the Men- deley’s (2014) reference management software. Full-text copies of the articles were obtained and imported into Mende- ley where they were reviewed, bibliographic information was verified, and tags were applied to each article to indicate type of social media emphasized and research approaches used in the studies. The tagging process served as a first round of classification and coding. To conduct the second round of coding, bibliographic infor- mation first was exported from Mendeley in the Research Information Systems file format. This text file was imported into the NVivo (Version 10) qualitative analysis software pro- gram (QSR International, 2014). This process accomplished two goals: (a) it imported full-text copies of the articles into NVivo and (b) it simultaneously created an internal classifica- tion sheet (similar to a spreadsheet), which contained biblio- graphic information that was linked to each imported article. The classification sheet was created for the purpose of running queries within NVivo and for export to Excel (Microsoft, 2014) where further analysis of overall trends could be conducted. Additional attributes (similar to spreadsheet columns) were added to the classification sheet so that each article could be categorized based on the social media emphasized in the study. The labeled categories comprised ‘‘Facebook,’’ ‘‘Twitter,’’ or ‘‘YouTube’’ for studies that focused on those specific social media platforms alone. A ‘‘Combination’’ category was used to label studies involving more than one type of social media that included Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or some combination of these platforms. A category for ‘‘Other Social Media’’ was used to label studies involving other named social media plat- forms such as MySpace. An ‘‘Unspecified’’ category was used for studies that emphasized more general social media topics where there was no specific mention of any particular social media platform. In addition to the categorization within the classification sheet, each entire article was coded as a case node in NVivo based on author names to facilitate the process of running matrix queries of authors versus content. Next, content within each article was coded based on the research approach applied to conduct the social media study. A set of top-level nodes, set at the highest point of a hierarchical node structure, was created prior to analysis to serve as the concept-driven coding frame, as discussed earlier. Nodes were created for qualitative and mixed methods research studies. In addition, child nodes were created under the mixed methods node for each of the mixed methods research design types described by Creswell and Plano Clark (2011). Nodes for specific approaches such as interviews, focus groups, surveys, or content analysis were generated later when they were identified during analysis and coding of the individ- ual articles. Research approaches had already been tagged on the articles in Mendeley during the first round of review, so the NVivo coding was cross-checked with the Mendeley tags to verify consistency. When discrepancies were observed, articles were reviewed again to resolve these differences. Trends across the set of tagged and coded literature were identified through analysis of coded article text, matrix queries of articles and codes, and information in the article classification sheet. The classification sheet was exported from NVivo as a spreadsheet for analysis in Excel where pivot tables were created to generate charts and frequencies of pub- lication trends. Limitations and Delimitations Prior literature reviews of social media research have described limitations that are equally applicable to the current study. Factors attributed to scope restrictions based on specific social media platform, databases, types of literature (e.g., articles and conference papers), languages, publications (e.g., specific jour- nals), or use of specific search phrases have been discussed (e.g., Błachnio et al., 2013; Gholami-Kordkheili, Wild, & Strech, 2013; Khan, 2012; Khang, Ki, & Ye, 2012; Leung et al., 2013; Williams et al., 2013; Wilson et al., 2012; Zhang & Leung, 2014). Restricting the scope of a literature review can be beneficial in making the study feasible and focused. How- ever, it also means that some literature will most likely be left Snelson 5 out of the analysis. The same issue holds true for the present study with its own restrictions on language, publication type, databases, and search phrases. The restrictions and criteria for inclusion should be communicated in literature reviews, as they are here, to ensure that other researchers are made aware of limitations impacting coverage. Furthermore, these details per- mit replication or comparison among literature review studies. The restrictions and selection criteria have been provided in the method section earlier to ensure that these details are available for interested researchers. In addition, a complete bibliography of all of the studies included in this review, including a cate- gorized list of mixed methods studies identified by the author, is available online at https://sites.google.com/site/qualmix/ bibliography. Strategies for describing, defining, or classifying mixed methods research studies have been proposed through the development of various typologies, models, or frameworks (Creswell, 2014; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011; Guest, 2012; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Nastasi, Hitchcock, & Brown, 2010). The present literature review limits discussion to the typology developed by Creswell and Plano Clark (2011). This typology served as a useful tool for organizing and describing timing and priority of data collection and analysis within social media research. Results and Discussion The results of this systematic literature review study are orga- nized in a general-to-specific manner. These results begin by presenting overall trends for the entire combined collection of 229 qualitative and …