Lobbying in social media as a new source of survey bias

Abstract

Questionnaires are widely-used tools in empirical social science, including tourism research. The key premise of each quantitative survey is the representativeness of the investigated sample. Yet, the rapid development of information and communication technology forces social scientists to take new sources of biases into account. This paper describes the problem of lobbying in social media, initiated by survey participants themselves. We report a collective action of online communities which resulted in over-representation of the collective opinions of certain interest groups. The bias has been observed when analyzing data collected during a visitor monitoring study in a popular forest recreation destination: the Tricity Landscape Park in Poland. Two different methods: on-site survey (n = 994) and online survey (n = 1023) were used to collect data on local recreational preferences. A significant effect of lobbying in social media on online survey responses has been identified in the case of questions related to the forest management. Management implicationsOur study confirms significant differences between results obtained via on-site and online surveys.Cost-efficient distribution of online survey link via social media may cause biased results.Especially, distribution channels of online surveys related to problematic management issues need to be carefully chosen.In such cases, social media activity (link sharing, post assessment (e.g. likes or negative reactions) accompanying the discussion) need to be additionally monitored in order to detect uncontrolled lobbying of certain users’ opinions.