Putting the methodological brakes on claims to measure national happiness through Twitter: Methodological limitations in social media analytics

Abstract

With the rapid global proliferation of social media, there has been growing interest in using this existing source of easily accessible ‘big data’ to develop social science knowledge. However, amidst the big data gold rush, it is important that long-established principles of good social research are not ignored. This article critically evaluates Mitchell et al.’s (2013) study, ‘The Geography of Happiness: Connecting Twitter Sentiment and Expression, Demographics, and Objective Characteristics of Place’, demonstrating the importance of attending to key methodological issues associated with secondary data analysis.