VFYW Place Data

Description

This data was extracted from the View from Your Window (the ORIGINAL Group!) Facebook Group.

Steps to reproduce

To start extracting data, I used the search bar on the VFYW group page and entered “Athens, Georgia.” This search produced approximately 67 posts; however, many posts referenced or included contextual evidence otherwise (e.g., the Acropolis in Athens, Greece), which I manually removed from the dataset. I ended up reviewing 19 posts/threads posted between March 3, 2023, and July 5, 2025. While most authors included only one image in their posts, two authors included two images, and a third author included a photograph and a video. This extraction produced 21 still images and one video. For each post, I manually extracted the images and saved them as JPEGs in preparation for analysis. Using Microsoft Excel®, I then created a master list to link the images with its meta- and para-data, including a researcher generated image descriptor, the date of the original post, the number of reactions the post received broken down type (e.g., like, heart, care emoji), the number of comments, the number of shares, and a space for notes. I then created an Excel sheet for each post to archive the comments for each thread. The data categories on these sheets included the comment’s number (to establish chronological order), the name of the comment’s author, the date of the post, the number of reactions it received, the commentor’s text, and a link to an image if necessary. I included the image link because many individuals inserted GIFs or their own images as comments, which gave me a way to connect images within the thread. In preparation for data analysis, I manually extracted the comments for entries with fewer than five comments and entered the data into the spreadsheet by hand. For posts with more than five comments, I used the web-based tool ExportComments.com® to extract the comments. There were 876 comments extracted in total.

Institutions

• Florida International University

  Florida, Miami

Categories

Licence