WATCH: Sherry Emery Talks Social Media Research & Health Equity
October 2024
This is the latest in our EquityCorps video series, featuring NORC experts who are advancing equity through social science research.
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NORC’s Sherry Emery discusses how social media research can help us understand health behaviors and misinformation—and the importance of embedding equity in this work.
Senior fellow Sherry Emery sits down with Chandria Jones, principal research scientist, for a wide-ranging discussion on social media research and equity.
During this conversation, Sherry discusses her background in media and health behavior research, approaches to equity in big data analysis, and the challenges of misinformation on social media. She also shares her hopes for better access to social media data in the future.
Key Topics
- Sherry’s work directing NORC's Social Data Collaboratory and her career researching media's influence on health behavior
- The importance of involving community members with lived experience as partners in research design and analysis
- How to analyze social media data through an equity lens by understanding community context and vocabulary
- What makes misinformation on social media complex to identify, since messages often mix truth with inaccurate information
- Why certain communities, particularly youth, are more vulnerable to targeted misinformation in the predatory social media environment
- The need for social media companies to provide better data to researchers while balancing privacy concerns
- How we can better understand social media's health impacts, especially on vulnerable populations
