Social media technologies have attracted substantial attention among many types of users including researchers who have published studies for several years. This article presents an overview of trends in qualitative and mixed methods social media research literature published from 2007 through 2013. A collection of 229 qualitative studies were identified through a systematic literature review process. A subset of 55 of these articles report studies involving a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Articles were reviewed, analyzed, and coded through a qualitative content analysis approach. Overall trends are presented with respect to the entire collection of articles followed by an analysis of mixed methods research approaches identified in the subset of 55 studies. The most commonly used research approaches involved collecting data from people through interview, focus group, and survey methodologies. Content analysis was the second most commonly used approach whereby researchers use Facebook posts, Tweets (Twitter posts), YouTube videos, or other social media content as a data source. Many of the studies involving combinations of quantitative and qualitative data followed a design resembling Creswell and Plano Clark's basic mixed methods typology (e.g., convergent parallel, explanatory sequential, and exploratory sequential).Keywords social media research, Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mixed methods, qualitative This article presents a descriptive methodological analysis of qualitative and mixed methods approaches for social media research. It is based on a systematic review of 229 qualitative or mixed methods research articles published from 2007 through 2013 where social media played a central role. Publication trends are presented for the entire set of articles followed by analysis of a subset of 55 studies that combined qualitative and quantitative approaches consistent with an established mixed methods typology (Creswell, 2014;Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). The literature analysis is first contextualized by presenting a brief overview of related scholarly activity in the emerging field of social media research. This is followed by a discussion of publication trends and methodologies applied in this systematic literature review.Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as '' . . . a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content'' (p. 61). The emergence of social media technologies has been embraced by a growing number of users who post text messages, pictures, and videos online (Duggan, 2013;Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & Madden, 2015). Reports of worldwide social networking activity suggest that there were 1.96 billion users in 2015 with predictions of 2.44 billion users by 2018 (Statista, 2015). Of all the social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are among the most popular ranking within the top 10 of a list of most heavily ...

This is an author-produced, peer-reviewed version of this article. © 2009, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). The final, definitive version of this document can be found online at Computers in Human Behavior, doi: 10.1016Behavior, doi: 10. /j.chb.2010 1 NOTICE: This is the author's version of a work accepted for publication by Elsevier. Changes resulting from the publishing process, including peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting and other quality control mechanisms, may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. The definitive version has been published in Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 26, Issue 6, 2010. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010 One study found that college students reported visiting social network profiles an average of 2.4 to 4.19 times a day for an average of one to two and a half hours Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008).College students report using social networking websites to make new friends, locate old friends and to keep in touch with current friends (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Social network profiles also provide an avenue for identity construction and representation, usually in the form of "showing" rather than "telling" (Zhao, Grasmuch, & Martin, 2008). Despite the positive outcomes of using social networking websites, such as feelings of mastery, identity exploration, and peer group interaction (Hinduja & Patchin, 2007; Schmitt, Dayanim, & Matthias, 2008), online social networking activities can also include less positive activities. Several studies have identified that as many as half of all adolescents and young adults with social networking profiles display negative health risk behaviors, including sexual behaviors and substance use (Moreno, Parks, & Richardson, 2007;Moreno, Parks, Zimmerman, Brito, & Christakis, 2009 found that 85% of young adult's publicly accessible MySpace profiles displayed substance use references.Any number of problems can result from posting images of health risk behaviors including increased risk of cyberbullying, damage to reputation, or loss of educational or vocational opportunities (Barnes, 2009;SkillStorm, 2009; Inside Higher Ed, 2009;Ybarra, et al., 2007). Additionally, the presence of these images may increase peer acceptance and interest in the risk behaviors (Bandura, 2004). Furthermore, a variety of news sources report that police use Facebook, YouTube, and other social-media sites to catch criminals who discuss or upload video recordings of their illegal acts for public viewing (Boston Globe, 2009;Fox News, 2007; New York Times, 2010). Because both photographs and video record an exact representation of real-world events and may be viewed repeatedly, when they are uploaded to a publicly accessible social networking or video-sharing site, images and video footage becomes available to a worldwide audience of Internet users. Risks for access...

Research on social presence and online learning continues to grow. But to date, researchers continue to define and conceptualize social presence very differently. For instance, at a basic level, some conceptualize social presence as one of three presences within a Community of Inquiry, while others do not. Given this problem, we analyzed how researchers in highly cited social presence research defined social presence in an effort to better understand how they are defining social presence and how this might be changing over time. In this article, we report the results of our inquiry and conclude with implications for future research and practice.

An exploratory mixed-methods study involving a combination of online ethnography and descriptive statistics was conducted to investigate school-related vlogging. Five areas were emphasized: (1) characteristics of school-related vlogs, vloggers, and viewers; (2) vlog context (where recording occurred); (3) vlog content (what was said and shown); (4) vlogger culture (patterns of speech or practice); and (5) motivations for vlogging about school. A purposive sample of 120 personal video blogs (vlogs) was collected through a systematic process on YouTube during a three-month period. Results of the study revealed that vloggers were young, recorded in multiple settings including classrooms, showed and described their school experiences, shared a vocabulary for interacting with an audience, and vlogged for a variety of reasons including the desire to alleviate boredom, for fun, because friends were doing it, to build confidence or improve their speaking skills, document their experiences, share information, or to connect with others.

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