Using blog articles in software engineering research: benefits, challenges and case-survey method

Context: Social media has dramatically changed the landscape of software engineering, and there is increasing use of blogs in software development. Objective: To examine opportunities for using blogs as a source of evidence in software engineering research. Method: We informally review practitioners use of blogs, and review the research literature. Results: We identify benefits and challenges to the use of blogs, consider quality criteria, and describe an automated methodology, based on the case survey, to gather and analyse blog-based evidence. Conclusion: Further work is required on automating the case survey methodology to ensure that large volumes of higher-quality blog content can be used effectively in research.