Social media has put mass communication in the hands of normal people on an unprecedented scale, and has also given social scientists the tools necessary to listen to the voices of everyday people around the world. This book gives social scientists the skills necessary to leverage that opportunity, and transform social media's vast stream of information into social science data. The book combines the big data techniques of computer science with social science methodology. Intended as a text for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the social sciences, this book provides a methodological pathway for scholars who want to make use of this new and evolving source of data. It provides a framework for building one's own data collection and analysis infrastructure, a toolkit of content analysis, geographic analysis, and network analysis, and meditations on the ethical implications of social media data.

Social media has put mass communication in the hands of normal people on an unprecedented scale, and has also given social scientists the tools necessary to listen to the voices of everyday people around the world. This book gives social scientists the skills necessary to leverage that opportunity, and transform social media's vast stream of information into social science data. The book combines the big data techniques of computer science with social science methodology. Intended as a text for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the social sciences, this book provides a methodological pathway for scholars who want to make use of this new and evolving source of data. It provides a framework for building one's own data collection and analysis infrastructure, a toolkit of content analysis, geographic analysis, and network analysis, and meditations on the ethical implications of social media data.

A dark and often hilarious science fiction novel drawn from a vein adjacent to Heinlein and Vonnegut, Katorga harshly reflects a reality reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's best fiction. Doug Bradley is an entirely average veterinarian hanging his shingle in the suburbs of the near future when he and thousands of other innocents are torn from their homes, branded as terrorists, and thrown through a doorway onto a barren and frozen world called Ceti Prime. The Warden of the colony issues simple orders to the prisoners at gunpoint: find a way to survive, or don't. Brimming with the maniacal humor of the hopelessly damned, Katorga sees Doug and his quite mad friends face the perils of an alien wasteland, the dangers of bored and sociopathic guards and the delicacies of purple cactus. Along the way, secrets of this new world lead Doug to the chance for both freedom and redemption.