Words count: Core text (Title-References) 7677, Tables and Figure captions 1099. Digital and social media and large available data sets generate various new possibilities and challenges for doing research focused on perpetually developing online news ecosystems. This paper presents a novel computational technique for gathering and processing large quantities of data from Facebook. We demonstrate how to use this technique for detecting and analyzing issue-attention cycles and news flows in Facebook groups and pages. Although the paper concentrates on a Finnish Facebook group as a case study, the method demonstrated can be used for gathering and analyzing large sets of data from various social network sites and national contexts. The paper also discusses Facebook platform regulations of data gathering and ethical issues of doing online research.

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