This document discusses big social data research and outlines a research project on analyzing data from social media and other online sources to understand public opinion formation in Australia. It aims to develop new methods for integrating large datasets from Facebook, Twitter, news websites and search/browsing data. The project will examine how news and issues spread and change in prominence over time, and how online public discussion networks form and interact across platforms. Initial findings show identifiable networks and discussion trends for different news sources and topics on Twitter.