Social media monitoring and understanding: an integrated mixed methods approach for the analysis of social media

It is increasingly apparent that social media is a unique and important resource to explore spontaneous relations and discourses among individuals. Data analysis in social media, however, is difficult because approaches have not been streamlined. In this paper, we move from the discussion of present perspectives in the analysis of social media to then discuss the methodological strategies available and their limits. We finally discuss the value of choosing a mixed methods approach to the analysis of social media, exemplifying its heuristic contribution by a real research case: the one-year monitoring of Italian women spontaneous social media discourses on the hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD).