17. Hashtag Network Analysis and Interwoven Research Ethics with Ryan Gallagher and Brooke Foucault Welles

Diaries of Social Data Research

Our guests in this episode are Ryan Gallagher, a PhD Candidate in Network Science at Northeastern University, and Brooke Foucault Welles, an Associate Professor in Communication Studies and the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University. We discuss their 2019 CSCW paper, "Reclaiming Stigmatized Narratives: The Networked Disclosure Landscape of #MeToo" with co-authors Elizabeth Stowell and Andrea G. Parker.
We talk about their substantive motivation for focusing on #metoo, the networked counter public, and hashtags' influence on social change. Ryan and Brooke also walk us through the advantages of pairing qualitative and quantitative work, weaving ethics throughout every stage of the research process, dealing with missing Tweets, and taking seriously both the "computational" and "social science" sides of CSS.