Computational Communication Research - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2024

Introduction to the Special Issue on Participant-Centered Behavioral Traces

Digital trace data retrieved via data donations holds significant potential for the study of individual behavior. However, data donation studies may be subject to bias. Researchers therefore need to quantify and address systematic error in digital trace data. To complement a-posteriori error correction methods like statistical modeling, we tested how ex-ante approaches, in particular survey design strategies, may help addres Read More

The use of online media has led to an increase in digital footprints of human behavior, which has resulted in a growing interest in the collection and analysis of such data in non-intrusive ways. One such approach is digital data donation, which involves requesting participants to share data that they have requested from digital platforms with researchers. While this approach promises to provide an unprecedented level of detail f Read More

Currently, few tools are openly available that researchers can use to collect data donations. The Data Donation Module (DDM) presented in this paper addresses this gap and provides a new solution for collecting data donations from citizens. The DDM is a web application that provides researchers with the means to guide participants through the data donation process, define rules on how the personal data provided by Read More

Data donation methods have shown great potential as a means to measure a person’s media consumption behavior and exposure at an unprecedented level of detail. Yet what hampers this potential is that studies often suffer from high drop-out rates, and the accuracy of the digital trace data cannot be taken for granted. To improve the potency of this method, we need to systematically investigate how different recr Read More

Advertising has historically played a major cultural role in media and society; targeted advertising based on the detailed profiling of consumers has become central to the business models of commercial digital and social media platforms. Despite their immense cultural and economic significance, the operations of these advertising systems are difficult to observe, preventing the independent, systematic study of both a Read More

Data donations have often focused on general population samples and everyday media use. In this paper, we show how this approach can be used as a tool to study professional media use in sub-samples. We do so by exploring whether and how we can use browser history to gather information about the online information repertoires of journalists, taking into account the specific characteristics of these professionals. Data donati Read More

The collection of data donations holds great potential for making digital trace data accessible to communication research. However, a major challenge is the recruitment of participants who are willing to donate their data for research. Hence, this research report presents our experiences with different strategies used in one study to recruit citizens to donate their personal media usage data. Based on our experiences durin Read More