Abstract
Monitoring and using social media to understand — or influence — public opinion is not a new thing. Companies, political parties and organizations alike are keen to observe what their followers say, what people are commenting on their Facebook Pages and what is said in the comments sections of YouTube and Instagram. Moreover, a great deal of work has been done in building social media teams in charge of both engaging and analysing what people exchange through these platforms. To some extent, these phenomena have questioned whether traditional, more expensive, ways to observe public opinion are still required. The regular route for understanding public opinion, both at the consumer and the political levels, relies heavily on surveys. These instruments present their own advantages depending on the scope of the research. Moreover, they enjoy a fair amount of validity among the scientific community as proper instruments to analyse public attitudes.
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© 2016 Javier Sajuria and Jorge Fábrega
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Sajuria, J., Fábrega, J. (2016). Do We Need Polls? Why Twitter Will Not Replace Opinion Surveys, but Can Complement Them. In: Snee, H., Hine, C., Morey, Y., Roberts, S., Watson, H. (eds) Digital Methods for Social Science. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453662_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453662_6
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