Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age

446 Pages·2017·3.99 MB·English

by  Matthew J. Salganik

BIT BY BIT

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON & OXFORD
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SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
PREFACE xv
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 2 • OBSERVING BEHAVIOR 13
CHAPTER 3 • ASKING QUESTIONS 85
CHAPTER 4 • RUNNING EXPERIMENTS 147
CHAPTER 5 • CREATING MASS COLLABORATION 231
CHAPTER 6 • ETHICS 281
CHAPTER 7 • THE FUTURE 355
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 361
REFERENCES 367
INDEX 413
vii

CONTENTS
PREFACE xv
CHAPTER 1 • INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Aninkblot......................................................................... 1
1.2 Welcometothedigitalage................................................... 2
1.3 Researchdesign ................................................................ 5
1.4 Themesofthisbook............................................................ 6
1.5 Outlineofthisbook............................................................. 9
Whattoreadnext............................................................... 11
CHAPTER 2 • OBSERVING BEHAVIOR 13
2.1 Introduction....................................................................... 13
2.2 Bigdata............................................................................ 14
2.3 Tencommoncharacteristicsofbigdata ................................. 17
2.3.1 Big ......................................................................... 17
2.3.2 Always-on................................................................ 21
2.3.3 Nonreactive ............................................................. 23
2.3.4 Incomplete............................................................... 24
2.3.5 Inaccessible............................................................. 27
2.3.6 Nonrepresentative .................................................... 29
2.3.7 Drifting.................................................................... 33
2.3.8 Algorithmicallyconfounded......................................... 35
2.3.9 Dirty....................................................................... 37
2.3.10 Sensitive................................................................ 39
2.4 Researchstrategies............................................................ 41
2.4.1 Countingthings ........................................................ 41
2.4.2 Forecastingandnowcasting........................................ 46
2.4.3 Approximatingexperiments........................................ 50
ix