Data Donation

The digital traces that people leave through their use of various online platforms provide tremendous opportunities for studying human behaviour and the antecedents, contents and consequences of communication in an increasingly digital world. Access to such crucial data is often a challenge, however, as much of the digital traces left by individuals are available only to the (large) digital platforms that have a central role in this digital ecosystem.

The Digital Communication Methods Lab supports a set of projects to develop methods and frameworks in which researchers partner with individuals willing to donate their digital trace data to academic research.

Selected publications

Araujo, T., Ausloos, J., Atteveldt, W. van, Loecherbach, F., Moeller, J., Ohme, J., Trilling, D., Velde, B. van de, Vreese, C. de, & Welbers, K. (2021). OSD2F: An Open-Source Data Donation Framework. In SocArxiv Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xjk6t
• Baumgartner, S. E., Sumter, S. R., Petkevič, V., & Wiradhany, W. (in press). A novel iOS data donation approach: Automatic processing, compliance and reactivity in a longitudinal study. Social Science Computer Review.
• Ohme, J., Araujo, T. B., de Vreese, C. H., & Piotrowski, J. (2020). Mobile data donations: Assessing self-report accuracy and sample biases with the iOS Screen Time function. Mobile Media & Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157920959106