Prospects for application of computer analysis to social media studies

The present research examines the phenomenon of big data in the context of social media analysis, as it can serve a major instrument in studying various aspects of modern society. The role of automated content analysis is presented in two aspects. On the one hand, the application of this method is necessary for collection and interpretation of large amounts of qualitative data, which is a general trend in interdisciplinary research. On the other hand, the importance of using the method is even more apparent when it is applied to social media studies. It is the latter that enables a researcher to investigate a wide range of scholastic subjects starting from target marketing to the study of consciousness through linguistics, philosophy and sociology of language. The author proposes methods and principles of social media research from the standpoint of sociological knowledge and interdisciplinary trends. There is revealed the content analysis with regard to the prospects for their application in computer-aided social and humanitarian studies. The author outlines limitations of the proposed method and suggests other ways of organizing qualitative research of social media data using various software.