Summary: Although Mobile Instant Messenger Services (MIMS) play an increasingly important role in social life, we know surprisingly little about these networks. Most research on social media focuses on “traditional” social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, because in contrast to MIMSs, data from these platforms are relatively accessible to research. In this project, we rely on the innovative method of data donation to collect information on the WhatsApp network in the Netherlands, by asking LISS respondents to donate own user data in a way that is both user-friendly and respecting their privacy. Specifically, we collect the number of WhatsApp contacts and groups per respondent, as well as metadata about one group chat conversation per respondent. The result is one of the first datasets on WhatsApp usage on a broad and high-quality sample, promising novel insights on questions about mobilization, participation and (mis)information.
Data collection period: February – April 2023
Participant recruitment: Participants were recruited through the LISS Panel
Ethical review: The study was approved by the Ethical Review Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences of Utrecht University and of the LISS panel.
Software: The data donations were collected using Port.
Local processing: The Python script for local processing of the WhatsApp data is available on Github.
Data: Please contact the LISS panel.
Acknowledgements: This project was funded by the 2022 ODISSEI-LISS panel grant and the NWO VIDI (195.152 “Valid measures derived from incidental data”) awared to Daniel L. Oberski.
