Social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, WeChat) are important new digital platforms for online social networking and microblogging to discuss all kinds of issues (serious and trivial). Basically, whatever is on people's mind. This type of public communication has received lots of positive but also negative attention in the mainstream media as well as in the social sciences.

This course will introduce you to what typical social media data (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) tells us about politicians', journalists' and citizens' engagement in society.

Using a multi-theoretical approach (communication political, psychological), you will learn how to look at these actors' online behaviour, their expressed opinions and sentiments as well as their interconnectedness (online social networks). Furthermore, attention will be devoted to the potential that social media data provide but also to the limitations of social media data.