Challenges of managing social media research data: a researcher's perspective

The sources I use for my research on labour movement activism in Egypt have changed dramatically in recent years, and particularly since the beginning of the revolution there on January 25th 2011.  

While face-to-face and telephone interviews still form a large part of my sources, these are complemented by a bewildering array of digital sources, particularly from Facebook, which has developed into an increasingly important organising tool and space for Egyptian trade unionists.

This was forcefully brought home to me in the middle of a huge demonstration by teachers in Cairo on 10 September (see more here for the background to the protest). Teachers from across Egypt mobilised for the demonstration, relying on grassroots organisations which have only recently developed into national co-ordination via the new independent teaching unions. While recording interviews with a group of teachers in the street I asked 'How do you organise yourselves?'. 'On Facebook' they chorused in unison.

But as a researcher, interacting with the material on Facebook brings a huge number of challenges. A particular problem I am struggling with at the moment is how to 'freeze' a dynamic digital environment such as a Facebook wall in order to capture some of the data I am interested in studying. Beyond taking screen shots and saving as a pdf, this is difficult to do, and it is risky to assume that the material you want to look at will still be available in six months' time, let alone years hence. If anyone knows a satisfactory way of archiving a Facebook wall (of a open group, or cause), please let me know! There is a similar difficulty with YouTube. I make extensive use of video interviews with trade union activists, shot by activist journalists like Hossam el-Hamalawy (@arabawy) and Gigi Ibrahim (@gsquare86), as well those put online in their thousands by hundreds of Egyptian activists armed with nothing more than a camera phone. YouTube videos can be downloaded, but firstly they immediately lose their vital contextual information (which makes a great difference to how users view them), and secondly, there is the problem of archiving downloaded videos (in terms of space to store them, as even a five minute video may be 30Mb or so). Answers on a postcard, please!