Topic Modeling in social science - what it is and how to use it

OER created for the course 'Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung (in) der digitalen Gesellschaft SE' in the summer semester of 2023. In this OER we would like to offer an overview of topic modeling as a method for social scientist with no expert knowledge in the field of computational social sciences. Following general information on the historical and scientific background and technical information on the method we would like to answer the following questions: How can social scientists use topic modeling? What can and cannot the method achieve? What are the limitations? We discuss the research question of ‘How does the discourse on AI applications differ between the academic fields of social sciences and informatics?’ as an example. Based on this, we explain how a research process entailing the use of a topic model could be structured and what the potentials and challenges of applying the method are. In the last part of the OER we discuss how topic modeling can be part of a mixed methods research design, further developing our example