External Validity of Social Media Predictions

There is a growing number of papers which attempt to predict the future based on Social Media. Although these papers were able to present rather successfully results per se, there is a gap in the literature. Current approaches lack of external validity, i. e. to what extent a prediction model can be applied to a different setting than applied to by its author. This paper seeks out to close this gap. First I will provide a literature review concerning Social Media predictions on the one hand and external validity on the other hand. Following will be a conceptualization and application towards current papers. I conclude that external validity in Social Media predictions still remains a challenge and requires in the future more attention.