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An automated snowball census of the political web

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dc.contributor.authorGong, Abe
dc.contributor.departmentUniversity of Michigan
dc.date2023-09-23T03:45:58.000
dc.date.accessioned2024-04-26T17:51:03Z
dc.date.available2024-04-26T17:51:03Z
dc.date.issued2011-01-01
dc.description.abstractThis paper solves a persistent methodological problem for social scientists studying the political web: representative sampling. Virtu- ally all existing studies of the political web are based on incomplete samples, and therefore lack generalizability. In this paper, I combine methods from computer science and sampling theory to conduct an automated snowball census of the political web and constructs an all- but-complete index of English political websites. I check the robust- ness of this index, use it to generate descriptive statistics for the entire political web, and demonstrate that studies based on ad hoc sampling strategies are likely to be biased in important ways. In future research, this bias can be eliminated by using this index as a sampling universe. In addition, the methods and open-source software presented here can be used to creating similar sampling frames for other online content domains.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/31319
dc.relation.urlhttps://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=jitpc2011&unstamped=1
dc.source.statuspublished
dc.subjectSampling theory
dc.subjectweb mining
dc.subjecttext classification
dc.subjectcomputa- tional social science
dc.subjectCommunication
dc.subjectComputational Engineering
dc.subjectComputer Engineering
dc.subjectPolitical Science
dc.subjectPublic Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
dc.subjectScience and Technology Studies
dc.titleAn automated snowball census of the political web
dc.typearticle
dc.typearticle
digcom.contributor.authorisAuthorOfPublication|email:agong@umich.edu|institution:University of Michigan|Gong, Abe
digcom.identifierjitpc2011
digcom.identifier.contextkey2009412
digcom.identifier.submissionpathjitpc2011/6
dspace.entity.typePublication
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