College of Journalism & Mass Communications Public Insight Lab

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Public Insight Lab catalyzes interdisciplinary social media research through:
- Access: to state-of-the-art social and digital media analytics software
- Expertise: of faculty and affiliates
- Experiences: for students and faculty to engage in social media research
Based in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, with support from the Social and Behavioral Research Consortium and in collaboration with the NU Public Policy center, we conduct social media research with collaborators across campuses and the community to power insights that inform action, fueled by cutting edge software and the skills of our faculty, students and affiliates.
The Public Insight Lab recently held a free Zoom workshop, Tools and Training for Social Media Research in Academia, with support from The University of Nebraska Lincoln's Social & Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium and the Methodology and Evaluation Research Core Facility. The agenda and speaker list is available here. The workshop attracted over 240 registrants from across the globe, spanning 50+ disciplines and 25+ universities and colleges. The videos from the workshop are available here to highlight and illustrate valuable approaches to and tools for social media research in academia.
Session One: Why social media matters
Five-minute Flashtalks from scholars at UNL, University of Alabama, Clemson, and Louisiana State University
The following videos are recordings from Session One:
- Intro to the Workshop
- Flashtalk video 2.1
- Flashtalk video 2.2
- Flashtalk video 2.3
- Flashtalk video 2.4
Session Two: Exploring and harvesting social media data with Sprinklr
Dr. Valerie Jones, Associate Professor, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, UNL
Pranay Joshi, Success Manager, Sprinklr
Session Three: From “big data” to “the right data”: Utilizing Sprinklr’s topic search functionality to harvest filtered social data
Dr. Brandon Boatwright, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Communication; Director of the Social Media Listening Center; Clemson University
Session Four: Designing and analyzing social media research
Dr. Jameson Hayes, Associate Professor of Advertising; Director of the Public Opinion Lab; University of Alabama
Contact Us
Have a social media-related project? Want to join our social media research meetings and user group? Got questions?
Research News

The Public Insight Lab & MERC present: Call for Proposals Sunday, August 14, 2022 - 8:30am
The Public Insight Lab (within the College of Journalism and Mass Communications), in collaboration with UNL’s Methodology and Evaluation Research Core (formerly within the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium), is issuing a call for proposals for research needing access to “big data” from media (social and traditional) sources.
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MobileMe&You Conference at UNL Oct. 20-22 Sunday, August 14, 2022 - 6:30am
This year’s annual MobileMe&You Conference, co-sponsored by the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, will be at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Student Union Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 20-22.
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Fourteen CoJMC faculty members attend the 2022 AEJMC conference Sunday, August 7, 2022 - 1:30pm
Fourteen faculty members from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications attended the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) from Aug. 2-6, in Detroit. Many served as panelists, moderators and discussants or they presented their research in a variety of sessions throughout the four-day conference.
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