Social Media Data in the Academic Environment: Crimson Hexagon in the Library

Social media data is a high-profile resource across academic disciplines, in areas as diverse as understanding voter behavior, tracking social communication networks, and identifying sources and effects of pollution on human health. While manual data collection and review from public social media sites can provide some insight into the content of these sources, bulk access to data is preferred for more complex and deeper analysis into the content. A certain amount of data can be accessed directly from some social media companies - whether through an API, screen-scraping, or
legally-questionable means - but the environment for access to the full ‘firehose’ of social media data is rapidly changing, making social media research an expensive endeavor.

This presentation will include an overview of the social media data landscape and the Crimson Hexagon product, a detailed discussion of the policy and access challenges specific to providing access to Crimson Hexagon, and an update on lessons learned and next steps for using this
resource at our respective institutions