Archiving Social Media: A Comparative Study of the Practices, Obstacles, and Opportunities Related to the Development of Social Media Archives

This thesis investigates challenges and solutions related to the development of social media collections. In the last decade, the cultural value of social media and the discussions generated on these platforms have been widely recognised, with archiving institutions increasingly looking into preserving this important resource. However, while archiving institutions have made significant progress in establishing practices related to the preservation of websites, social media data still presents significant challenges. Despite being an integral part of the World Wide Web, social media platforms have become a sort of separate ecosystem with unique characteristics, dynamics and technical aspects that increasingly separate them from traditional websites. While scholarship has explored web archiving practices at length, little research has been specifically dedicated to investigating challenges and approaches concerning the development of social media collections.
Using a combination of desk research and an exploratory online survey, this thesis begins by offering an overview of the state of the art, shedding light on the geographical location and stage of development of social media archiving initiatives, and uncovering imbalances and gaps in the international preservation of these sites. Moreover, the research identifies obstacles hindering the establishing of social media archives and collections in countries that are in the process of developing such initiatives and which are typically located in the Global North. Drawing from fieldwork and interviews with twelve web archivists from memory institutions archiving or planning to archive social media, this thesis provides a cross-national comparative analysis of the practices and solutions adopted for the collection of social media. The study is further enriched by two case studies focusing on archiving initiatives operating under electronic legal deposit legislation in the United Kingdom and France.
The comparative study demonstrates how the interaction of national legal frameworks, platforms’ policies, technical problems, and lack of resources available heavily shape social media collecting activities and the granularity of collections, drawing attention to potential concerns of representativeness of collections at a national level. This thesis offers novel insights on the specific challenges that social media platforms pose to archiving institutions compared to other born-digital materials like websites. This research contributes to the advancement of social media archiving practices by offering guidelines and recommendations to support the practical development of future initiatives, extending beyond national libraries and archives.