The use of social media to gather qualitative data: A case of government E-procurement implementation and use

The emergence of social media is enabling researchers to consider new data collection and triangulation strategies. Quantitative researchers have taken advantage of the emergence of the Internet as a medium to gather data. Meanwhile, interpretive researchers are only now being able to harness the potential that social media provide in generating more insight into collected data. Using a case of government e-procurement implementation and use in an Indonesian regency, we illustrate how social media exchange, postings, and conversations can be used as a source of rich qualitative data to enhance understanding of a topic being studied. Our findings show that monitoring social media exchange, postings, and conversation can strengthen our understanding and interpretation of offline data (such as interviews). This study contributes to literature on the use of online media for interpretive data collection.