45
This is what social scientists study. Now with social media engines like twitter and Instagram, researchers can track and begin to learn more about user groups based on the words and content they post. Even the least obvious, such as income bracket, as outlined late last year by researchers at UPENN (Studying User Income through Language, Behaviour and Affect in Social Media. PLOS ONE, 2015)[11]. Posted words link to behavior which then links back to identity, perceived and/ or constructed. Interestingly, on Twitter, it was found that people in higher income brackets tended to use words that express anger or fear (which could perhaps speak to a sense of entitlement), whereas lower
income Twitter users tended towards more optimistic offerings. They also used more “swear words” and used Twitter as a means of communicating between others in their social groups. Conversely, it was found that the higher income users “[disseminated] news” and used Twitter in a more professional capacity. The amount of information that can be gathered from Twitter and related social media platforms is astounding, and with the right combination of technology and human understanding, we can begin to innovate in sectors like anthropology and ethnography, reducing the cost of chasing people around and actually making it easier to come across research subjects.
SECONDARY RESEARCH