Tweets may be archived: Civic engagement, digital preservation and obama white house social media data

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs part of his presidential transition, the administration of Barack Obama included social media data among the materials transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In addition, this social media collection comprising data from Twitter, Facebook and Vine was distributed to organizations and researchers to explore and investigate. In this paper, we present our initial observations on the first social media presidency through the lens of its data, extracted from their native platforms. While the data speak to the engagement cultivated by the administration in its use of social media, the collection contains as many questions as it does answers. The completeness, metadata and accessibility of these materials remain unclear, potentially limiting the use of the collections in research and beyond. The paper analyzes platform‐specific issues and offers potential solutions to address the preservation and access challenges to social media data. We conclude with implications for the digital preservation community and social media researchers to consider when approaching social media data collections.