I haven’t posted in a while – I’ve been busy trying to figure out ways to conqueror my insane amount of data (as well as quite possibly repeatedly banging my head off my desk). For my discourse analysis on the future of newspapers, I was going to use the tweets of the top media experts including the first level links that they tweeted (including comments where available).

Sounds big but manageable, maybe!? Well … the original data set is over 18,000 tweets from 25 people over a two month span. I always knew I was going to narrow that down to the top 20 experts but that still leaves me with 16,000-odd tweets. After having several mini-strokes and maybe a few drinks I went to see one of my committee members who quite rightly pointed out that it just wasn’t doable by hand. He smiled and knowingly said “Get Nvivo”.

Nvivo is a qualitative data analysis software that is apparently going to make my life easier but thus far I’ve found out that it won’t run on my mac, costs $200 and is only installed on four machines on the entire University of Ottawa campus. Nonetheless, I’ve recalled all the books from the library on the program and have set out to try and figure out how to parse my data into the program. Thus far I have had no luck. I am desperately hoping to find someone who actually knows how to use the program!

So yeah, if you know Nvivo and want my undying love (or some reasonable facsimile) please let me know!