AusReddit: Researchers' Guide

We began with known geography-specific subreddits such as r/brisbane, r/queensland, r/australia. More subreddits were added as they were identified, either from previous research or during the harvesting process of NewsTalk, Digital Observatory’s archive of user commentary on Australian news stories.

A subreddit and all its content are included in the databank if they meet the following criteria:

1. The subreddit’s topic explicitly mentions Australia, e.g. r/brisbane, r/queensland, r/australia, r/AusFinance.
2. The subreddit is about Australian entities, issues or organisations, e.g. r/AFL, r/NRL, r/InstantHotel.
3. Any subreddit known to have a substantial Australian community interacting, i.e. where many discussions about known Australian issues occur.

Please note that collecting data from these Australia-related subreddits is the only way we confine data to an Australian context. It does not mean the posts were posted in an Australian region or by Australian users.

For a full list of included subreddits, please visit https://ausreddit.digitalobservatory.net.au/subreddits.

Presently, subsets of AusReddit data are available to all researchers across Australia upon request. Full self-service access to the database is not yet available.

You can send us an inquiry via digitalobservatory@qut.edu.au. We suggest you including the following details in your inquiry:

1. Research project description,
2. Research team and affiliated institution(s),
3. Estimated project timeline and deadlines,
4. Preliminary search phrases, search timeframe, and other search parameters if applicable,
5. Ethics application and/or approval specifically for the project, if applicable.

Research projects with an Ethics exemption can only obtain aggregate data from the AusReddit. If researchers require access to raw data from the AusReddit for their research, ethical clearance in accordance with the study's risk level is a requirement. For most projects, low risk ethical clearance is sufficient. Importantly, the ethics application must cover usage of Reddit data. The Digital Observatory will require a copy of your ethical clearance before granting access to the databank.

For a general guide on navigating the ethics process, refer to the AusReddit Ethics Guide (PDF).

In addition, a data management plan is recommended if you work with potentially personally identifiable data (e.g. raw submissions and comments) from AusReddit.

It might be a requirement in some cases, including HDR and several funded research projects, including ARC (Australian Research Council) and NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council).