C04: Studying social media users and behaviors: Theories and Methods

Abstract

The rise of social media has sparked significant advancements in human-computer interaction (HCI) research, calling for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding user behaviors and designing impactful studies. This Course introduces participants to core concepts, theories, and methods for researching and understanding social media users. It integrates perspectives from HCI, human factors, psychology, sociology, and data science to provide a comprehensive framework for analyzing user engagement across platforms. The course begins with an exploration of the evolution of online social interaction technologies, examining the classifications and defining features of social media. Attendees will gain insight into the motivations, needs, and behavioral patterns driving user activity, supported by theoretical foundations. The Course introduces a diverse array of research methods, including A/B testing, content analysis, social network analysis (SNA), community mining, and internet ethnography, equipping participants to conduct research on social media users and behaviors through an interdisciplinary approach. To bridge theory with practice, the Course offers demonstrations of how these approaches are applied in research, highlighting case studies in two selected domains, tentatively, e-commerce and news sharing. Topics include analyzing consumer interactions on social media and evaluating the credibility of shared information, illustrating the practical utility of social computing methodologies. This course is designed for professionals, academics, and students aiming to deepen their understanding of social media user behaviors and learn interdisciplinary methods for conducting impactful research. By the end of the Course, attendees will be equipped with the tools and knowledge to analyze social media systems, generate meaningful insights, and address contemporary challenges in social computing.

Course Content

Objective:

The rise of social media and the profound changes it brings have brought new waves of HCI research on and through social media. Such research endeavors are often carried out through an interdisciplinary approach, combining theories and methods from domains including HCI, human factors, psychology, sociology, and data science. The aim of this Course is to provide an introduction to

• major concepts and theories to understand social media user behaviors,
• major approaches for doing research on social media, and
• demonstrations of how these theories and approaches are applied in research from selected domains (tentatively e-commerce and news sharing).

Table of contents (tentative):

• Introduction
  • A brief history of technologies to support online social interaction
  • Types and classifications
  • Features characterizing social media
• Understanding social media user behaviors
  • Needs, gratifications, and motivations
  • Media richness, awareness and social presence
  • User behaviors and patterns
• Doing social computing research
  • Key dimensions of investigation
    • Users: motivations, and behavioral patterns
    • Social networks: communities, key players, and structural analysis
    • Social media content: generation, dissemination, and content mining
    • Affordance and interface design of technological systems
  • Research methods beyond questionnaires and laboratories
    • Web analytics and A/B tests
    • Content analysis and data mining
    • SNA and community mining
    • Qualitative and mixed methods
    • Internet ethnography
    • Crowdsourcing
• Demonstrations in HCI research
  • Communicating with consumers through social media
  • News sharing and information credibility on social media
  • Online social interaction in education and learning