Leveraging social media big data to analyze internal migration

The article is devoted to the development of a methodology for the study of population migration based on the analysis of big data in social networks through thesearch for patterns showing the internal migration process in the messages of social media users. The research in question allowed us to evaluate the degree of validity and relevance of digital traces of individuals as a source of empirical data on internal migration.A software solution in the form of the Brand Analytics platform was used to generate the initial empirical data base onsisting of relocation messages published by social media users. The approbation of the methodology showed the fragmentation of research, analytical and predictive possibilities of using social networks as a source of data on intra-Russian population migration. Narrative analysis based on the formed sample of messages of users who have experience of resettlement within the country was proposed for further development of similar types of research.

big data, social networks, social media, internal migration, migration data sources, analysis of social media posts, migration analysis based on social media data