[bestbits] Call for Participation: Digital Methods Summer School 2015

[s.l.e.kok at uva.nl]

Call for Participation: Digital Methods Summer School 2015
Post-Snowden Media Empiricism and Secondary Social Media: Data Studies Beyond
Facebook and Twitter

Digital Methods Summer School
29 June - 10 July 2015

https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/SummerSchool2015

Map of Locations

Everyday location:
Digital Methods Initiative
New Media & Digital Culture
University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam
the Netherlands

The Summer School is pleased to have Lev Manovich give the opening keynote on
Monday, 29 June.

This year's Digital Methods Summer School is devoted to what we call ‘post-
Snowden media empiricism’ and 'secondary social media’. Post-Snowden media
empiricism refers to how to study online media since the revelations in June
2013 about the breadth and scope of NSA surveillance activities. Writing about
the future of media theory, post-Snowden, scholars are closing the age of
Internet innocence. For years one would study the extent to which cyberspace
is an alternative space, a realm of new politics, corporealities and identity
play, cleared of reputation, institutions and regulatory legal regimes. Such a
point of departure is long dated, but the post-Snowden dates others too, with
the likely exception of surveillance studies, once a branch or sub-field. Such
is the context these days for calls for post-media as well as post-digital
studies.

In considering how to rethink the study of online media, post-Snowden, there
are a series of proposals for new theory, but there is not the concomitant
attention to the empirical project. What may be the agenda for a post-Snowden
media empiricism? Are there digital methods for a post-Snowden surveillance
studies? Considering how to approach online media generally nowadays, we ask:

1) What does it mean for media researchers to treat and study empirically the
web as an intelligence medium? Do we hunt for confidential documents and study
leaks? Would we inevitably slope towards intelligence work?

2) In post-Snowden media empiricism, would one embrace the study of the dark
web, anonymous web and onion routers? Should we throw a Tor install party?

3) Ghostery and other software that track trackers (like our very own “tracker
tracker” tool) are means to study soft surveillance online (third party
cookies, beacons, etc.). Does such surveillance study pale in the face of the
sheer scale of post-Snowden media that is surveilled?

4) With the cloud we have moved from a user logic of downloading to one of
uploading. Should we replace our scrapers with sniffers?

5) Do the older new media methods still apply? Could we map the cloud as
linked server space?

The NSA did not name all the social media platforms. 'Secondary social media'
is a term we are using to compliment and place opposite to GAFA (Google,
Apple, Facebook, Amazon), employed increasingly in French intellectual circles
to denote U.S. digital cultural imperialism. Should we turn our focus to the
lesser platforms? What value do the other social media platforms have for
social research? If Google can be shown to author new source epistemologies,
Apple's iOS store (together with Amazon's lists) as sources for best-selling
issues and Facebook for most engaged with content, what do secondary social
media such as Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr have to offer? We are also
interested in social media alternatives and new online spaces offering
conviviality without necessarily resorting to the logic of the social graph.

Big Platforms, or GAFA
Among the big data critiques is the notion of ready-made data. This line of
thought is part of the continuum which sees a wholesale switch from
hermeneutics to pattern-recognition as well as a reputational swing favouring
those with big analytical infrastructure. But there needs to be data for the
machines that learn and the analysts who run them. Ready-made data as a big
data critique refers to an over reliance on API streams for the study of
virtually any societal matter, such as Twitter data to monitor disasters,
revolutions and presidential transitions and predict flu trends, elections as
well as celebrity awards.

Which data are preferred? Whilst the term has deeper roots in the
consideration of publishing old media online, the acronym, GAFA, standing for
Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, has resonated particularly in the French
press and scientific literature as the new term for U.S. digital cultural
imperialism, expanded from allusions to Googlization nearly a decade ago,
which also coincided with a call for a European search engine, Quaero. Whilst
the term may fit well for media publishers and advertisers, for data analysts
Twitter is an obvious addition for the study of influence and trend as would
be Wikipedia, not only for monitoring attention to matters of concern and
cross-cultural comparison but also for data groundwork such as keyword and
source list-building (with the advantage or disadvantage of often being
exhaustive such as the list of social networking websites).


gafa_.png

Gafa logo by glyndot (2013) referring to the collective dominance of Google,
Apple, Facebook, Amazon

As a counter-point to GAFA, and the study of big platforms, we would like to
introduce the notion of secondary social media, with the question, where are
the other signals (online) for the potential purposes of social research? And
do they tend to be studied in a similar fashion as the big platforms
(monitoring and prediction)? How else to study them?

When one queries new trending social media networks, most popular social media
sites for teens or other auto-suggested and completed key phrases in leading
search engines, the lists may be concatenated (the exhaustive approach) or
triangulated, serving up !LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr,
Vine, Meetup, and other platforms but also the ‘after Facebook’ messaging
applications such as Snapchat. How to study the other social media?

The first recognition is that secondary social media is meant as a term in a
research sense rather than one pursued from a political economy point of view.
We realise that Vine is owned by Twitter, Flickr by Yahoo, Instagram by
Facebook, meaning that they are already GAFA-like, and rising on (potential)
market capitalization lists. They are understudied, however, both generally
but also in terms of how they may be repurposed for social research, which is
the digital methods approach.

Secondary social media have specificities as well as similiarities to Twitter
and Facebook, which may makes methods of their study comparable. Instagram
selfies (including their locations and characteristics) have seen scholarly
attention as has (gendered) social curation on Pinterest. But one may make use
of the content tagging and activity on the platformed social media so as to
study issue engagement. Instagram has hashtags (and comments), and Pinterest
likes, repins and comments, organising content and metrified attention to it
in ways similar to Twitter and Facebook, where one routinely studies most
engaged with content (through the likes, shares, comments, liked comments on
Facebook pages and groups, and retweets and favorites on Twitter), often
finding content with characteristics consistent with memes. With its
reblogging feature, Tumblr is similar, as potentially are its modes of
analysis.

Indeed, there may be a temptation to reduce all social media analysis with
digital methods to the study of network metrics, particuarly through inquiries
into influence, be it of an individual (clout) or a subject matter (trend).
The ease with which data can be collected from such platform APIs as Twitter,
and poured into analytics buckets attests to the admonition. As an analytical
strategy, however, one also may prefer the specificities of the platform over
the typical metrics measures. On the list are mature platforms such as Flickr,
where one typically studies tagging’s new taxonomies, or more specifically the
social life tags, watching which pictures most significantly occupy the
politics tag over time, for example. There is !LinkedIn, which one can study
the (new) skill sets of professions, profiling the new job names and
activities in the emerging creative industries. Snapchat to date has had
little scholarship or attention paid to its analytics, apart from a security
breach into its unauthorised API, thus far defying repurposing. When is a
platform less suitable or even useless for repurposing for social research?
Such could also fill in the notion of secondary social media.

About "Digital Methods" as Concept

Digital methods is a term coined as a counter-point to virtual methods, which
typically digitize existing methods and port them onto the Web. Digital
methods, contrariwise, seek to learn from the methods built into the dominant
devices online, and repurpose them for social and cultural research. That is,
the challenge is to study both the info-web as well as the social web with the
tools that organize them. There is a general protocol to digital methods. At
the outset stock is taken of the natively digital objects that are available
(links, tags, threads, etc.) and how devices such as search engines make use
of them. Can the device techniques be repurposed, for example by remixing the
digital objects they take as inputs? Once findings are made with online data,
where to ground them? Is the baseline still the offline, or are findings to be
grounded in more online data? There is also a Digital Methods book (MIT Press,
2013) as well as a complementary Issue Mapping book (Amsterdam University
Press, 2015).


About the Summer School

The Digital Methods Summer School, founded in 2007 together with the Digital
Methods Initiative, is directed by Professor Richard Rogers, Chair in New
Media & Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. The Summer School is
one training opportunity provided by the Digital Methods Initiative (DMI). DMI
also has a Winter School, which includes a mini-conference, where papers are
presented and responded to. Winter School papers are often the result of
Summer School projects. The Summer School is coordinated by two PhD candidates
in New Media at the University of Amsterdam, or affiliates. This year the
coordinators are are to be announced. The Summer School has a technical staff
as well as a design staff, drawn from the ranks of Density Design in Milan.
The Summer School also relies on a technical infrastructure of some nine
servers hosting tools and storing data. In a culture of experimentation and
skill-sharing, participants bring their laptops, learn method, undertake
research projects, make reports, tools and graphics and write them up on the
Digital Methods wiki. The Summer School concludes with final presentations.
Often there are guests from non-governmental or other organizations who
present their issues. For instance, Women on Waves came along during the 2010,
Fair Phone to the 2012 Summer School and Greenpeace and their Gezi Park
project in 2013. We worked on the issue of rewilding with NGOs in the 2014
Summer School. Digital Methods people are currently interning at major NGOs
and international organizations. Previous Digital Methods Summer Schools,
2007-2014, https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiSummerSchool. See also
previous Digital Methods Winter Schools, 2009-2015,
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool.

What's it like? Digital Methods Summer School flickr stream 2012 and flickr
stream 2013.

The Digital Methods Initiative was founded with a grant from the Mondriaan
Foundation, and the Summer School has been supported by the Center for
Creation, Content and Technology (CCCT), University of Amsterdam, organized by
the Faculty of Science with sponsorship from Platform Beta. It also receives
support from the Citizen Data Lab  University of Applied Sciences. The Digital
Methods Summer School is self-sustaining.

Applications and fees

To apply for the Digital Methods Summer School 2015, please use the University
of Amsterdam Summer School form. Or, please send a one-page letter explaining
how digital methods training would benefit your current work, and also enclose
a CV, a copy of your passport (details page only), a headshot photo as well as
a 100-word bio. Mark your application "DMI Training Certificate Program," and
send to info [at] digitalmethods.net. Please also mention in your application
e-mail whether you'd like to make use of the accommodation service (for more
information see below "Housing and Accomodation").

The deadline for applications for the Summer School is 23 April 2015. Notices
will be sent on 24 April. Please address your application email to the Summer
School coordinators, Saskia Kok and Liliana Bounegru, info [at]
digitalmethods.net. Informal queries may be sent to the email address as well.

The Summer School costs EUR 595 (non-credits) or EUR 895 with credits (6
ECTS). Accepted applicants will be informed of the bank transfer details upon
notice of acceptance to the Summer School on 24 April 2015. The fee must be
paid by 24 May 2015.

Scholarships

The Digital Methods Summer School is part of the University of Amsterdam
Summer School programme, which has a video giving a flavor of the Summer
School experience. Students from universities in the LERU and U21 networks are
eligible for a scholarship to help cover the cost for tuition and housing for
the DMI Summer School. Please consult their websites in order to see whether
you are eligible for a scholarship and to begin the application procedure.

Housing and Accommodations

The Summer School is self-catered, and there are abundant cafes and a
university mensa nearby. The Digital Methods Summer School is located in the
heart of Amsterdam. There are limited accommodations available to participants
at The Student Hotel at reasonable rates. In your application please indicate
whether you are interested in making use of this service. In your acceptance
notification, you will be given information about the reservation as well as
payment. For those who prefer other accommodations, we suggest airbnb or
similar. For shorter stay, there is Hotel Le Coin, where you may request a
university discount.

Summer School Credits (6 ECTS)

For those following the Digital Methods Summer School for credit, 6 credits
(ECTS) are granted to participants who follow the Summer School program, and
complete a significant contribution to a Summer School project (evidenced by
co-authorship of the project report as well as final (joint) presentation).
Templates for the project report as well as for the presentation slides are
supplied. For previous Summer School projects, see for example
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WikipediaAsASpaceOfControversy.

Schedule

The Summer School meets every weekday. Please bring your laptop. We will
provide abundant connectivity. We start generally at 9:30 in the morning, and
end around 5:30. There are morning talks one to two days per week. On the last
Friday we have a boat trip on the canals of Amsterdam.

Preparations: Reader and Online Tutorials and Lectures

For your Summer School to be especially successful we would recommend highly
that you watch (or listen to) the Digital Methods tutorials.
Audio and Video Tutorials - Digital Methods researchers have given tutorials
and talks which are useful and sometimes even entertaining.
Summer School Reader and Homework - Compilation of relevant readings and other
preparatory materials.
Digital Methods Summer School 2014 Tool Medley slides on Slideshare

Social Media & User-Generated Content

Twitter hashtag #dmi15
We shall have a list of summer school participants and make an old-fashioned
Facebook with the headshots and bio's you send to us.

Suggestions for Evening Hangouts

Amsterdam suggestions for the evenings.

We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam in the Summertime!