Scientific initiatives of archiving and preservation of contents in social media: current overview

Abstract

The study carries out a mapping of scientific experiments that collect and archive social media content. It presents initially a brief theoretical reference related to digital preservation and Web 2.0. Qualitative research with an exploratory approach since it sought to identify in the innovative experiences questions little investigated, such as the characteristics: technological (social media platform used, technological solution used to collect the data and format of storage of the collected data); and contextual checks to see if the metadata guarantees provenance, authenticity, and how rights management and types of data access are. The results indicate that, although the focus of these initiatives is not directly on preservation, this issue is intrinsically considered. Twitter is the primary platform for data collection used by researchers. Several are the challenges listed, it is necessary to specify how and by whom the data collected will be used and relevant should be the curatorial action in these projects, to select what should in fact be saved. Finally, the restrictions of social media platforms and the lack of transparency and understanding about their data management practices currently make it difficult to preserve this type of content.