Snowball Sampling and Facebook: How Social Media Can Help Access Hard-to-Reach Populations

The snowball sampling method (SSM) is one of the most widely used methods to collect information about hard-to-reach populations and in low-information contexts. This article argues that SSM can be enhanced by the use of Facebook in at least three ways. This social-networking site helps to address s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPS, political science & politics Vol. 54; no. 4; pp. 651 - 655
Main Author Dosek, Tomas
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.10.2021
Subjects
Access to information
Bias
Ethnography
Information
Information sources
Interviews
Leaders
Local politics
Participant Observation
Political activism
Politics
Principals
Referral
Research Methodology
Researchers
Sampling
Social media
Social networks
Social Organizations
The Profession
Latin America
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Summary:The snowball sampling method (SSM) is one of the most widely used methods to collect information about hard-to-reach populations and in low-information contexts. This article argues that SSM can be enhanced by the use of Facebook in at least three ways. This social-networking site helps to address some of the inherent limitations of SSM by learning about local contexts and identifying principal political actors, by gathering background information about and establishing contact with them, and by triangulating information they provide and reaching out to additional key informants. Thus, this article shows how Facebook can provide leverage in overcoming the problem of biased samples and offers concrete empirical illustrations from research on local politics in Latin American countries.
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ISSN:1049-0965
1537-5935
DOI:10.1017/S104909652100041X