scholarly journals Methods for datafication, datafication of methods: Introduction to the Special Issue

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-212
Author(s):  
Stine Lomborg ◽  
Lina Dencik ◽  
Hallvard Moe
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Data Points ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Public Organisations ◽  
New Research ◽  
Media And Communication

Digital media enable processes of datafication: users' online activities leave digital traces that are transformed into data points in databases, kept by service providers and other private and public organisations, and repurposed for commercial exploitation, business innovation, surveillance -- and research. Increasingly, this also extends to sensors and recognition technologies that turn homes and cities, as well as our own bodies, into data points to be collected and analysed So-called ‘traditional’ media industries, too, including public service broadcasting, have been datafied, tracking and profiling audiences, algorithmically processing data for greater personalisation as a way to compete with new players and streaming services. Datafication both raises new research questions and brings about new avenues, and an array of tools, for empirical research. This special issue is dedicated to exploring these, linking them to broader historical trajectories of social science methodologies as well as to central concerns and perspectives in media and communication research. As such, this special issue grapples with approaches to empirical research that interlink questions of methods and tools with epistemology and practice. It discusses the datafication of methods, as well as methods for studying datafication. With this we hope to enable reflection of what research questions media and communication scholars should ask of datafication, and how new and existing methods enable us to answer them.

scholarly journals Introduction: The emotional turn in journalism

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492098570
Author(s):  
Karin Wahl-Jorgensen ◽  
Mervi Pantti
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Diverse Field ◽  
Emotional Aspects ◽  
Developing Area ◽  
New Research

In journalism studies, an interest in emotions has gathered momentum during the last decade, leading to an increasingly diverse investigation of the affective and emotional aspects of production, text and audience engagement with journalism which we describe as an “emotional turn.” The attention to emotion in journalism studies is a relatively recent development, sustained by the concurrent rise of digital information technologies that have accentuated the emotional and affective everyday use of media, as well as the increasing mobilization, exploitation and capitalization of emotions in digital media. This special issue both builds upon research on emotion in journalism studies and aims to extend it by examining new theoretical and methodological tools, and areas of empirical analysis, to engage with emotion or affect across the contexts of journalistic production, content and consumption. In proclaiming ‘an emotional turn’ in journalism studies, the intention of this special issue is not to suggest a paradigm shift or a major change in the prevailing research agenda in the field. Rather, against the backdrop of the increasingly diverse field of journalism studies, it is to point out that the relationship between journalism and emotion represents a rapidly developing area of inquiry, which opens up for new research agendas.

Questioning security devices: Performativity, resistance, politics

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Amicelle ◽  
Claudia Aradau ◽  
Julien Jeandesboz
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Security Practices ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The One ◽  
New Research

Algorithms, biometrics and body scanners, computers and databases, infrastructures of various kinds, ranging from what is commonly referred to as ‘hi-tech’ to ‘low-tech’ items such as walls or paper files, have garnered increased attention in critical approaches to (in)security. This article introduces a special issue whose contributions aim to further these approaches by questioning the role and political effects of security devices. It proposes an analytics of devices to examine the configuration and reconfiguration of security practices by attending to the equipment or instrumentation that make these practices possible and temporally stabilize them. The aim here is not to advance devices as a new unit of analysis, but to open new forays in ongoing debates about security politics and practices, by asking different research questions and developing new research angles. We start by outlining what is at stake when thinking of and analysing security practices through devices, or shifting from the language of technology and ‘technologies of security’ to security devices. The remainder of the article then specifies how an analytics of devices involves a more varied vocabulary of performativity, on the one hand, and agency, on the other.

scholarly journals Reusing Data Technical and Ethical Challenges

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (06) ◽  
pp. 329-337
Author(s):  
Juan-José Boté ◽  
Miquel Termens
Keyword(s):  
Data Privacy ◽  
Data Reuse ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Fair Principles ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Public Organisations ◽  
New Research ◽  
Research Centres

Research centres, universities and public organisations create datasets that can be reused in research. Reusing data makes it possible to reproduce studies, generate new research questions and new knowledge, but it also gives rise to technical and ethical challenges. Part of these issues are repositories interoperability to accomplish FAIR principles or issues related to data privacy or anonymity. At the same time, funding institutions require that data management plans be submitted for grants, and research tends to be increasingly interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinarity may entail barriers for researchers to reuse data, such as a lack of skills to manipulate data, given that each discipline generates different types of data in different technical formats, often non-standardized. Additionally, the use of standards to validate data reuse and better metadata to find appropriate datasets seem necessary. This paper offers a review of the literature that addresses data reuse in terms of technical, ethical-related issues.

scholarly journals The Quality of Political Information

2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992091761
Author(s):  
Konstantin Vössing
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Two Component ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Research

The article conceptualizes the quality of political information and shows how the concept can be used for empirical research. I distinguish three aspects of quality ( intelligibility, relevance, and validity) and use them to judge the constituent foundations of political information, that is, component claims (statements of alleged facts) and connection claims (argumentative statements created by causally linking two component claims). The resulting conceptual map thus entails six manifestations of information quality ( component claim intelligibility, connection claim intelligibility, component claim relevance, connection claim relevance, component claim validity, and connection claim validity). I explain how the conceptual map can be used to make sense of the eclectic variety of existing research, and how it can advance new empirical research, as a guide for determining variation in information quality, as a conceptual template for the analysis of different types of political messages and their common quality deficiencies, and as a generator of new research questions and theoretical expectations.

Aptitude-by-Treatment Interactions in Research on Educational Interventions

2018 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristopher J. Preacher ◽  
Sonya K. Sterba
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Educational Interventions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Reading And Math ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Research ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Adequate Power

A common theme uniting articles in this special issue is a focus on aptitude-by-treatment interactions (ATIs). This timely and welcome focus allows the field to synthesize current substantive findings on ATIs in educational intervention research in both reading and math domains. In this methodological commentary, we begin by reviewing traditional approaches for detecting and reporting interactions in single-level and multilevel models. Next, we discuss some limitations of traditional approaches for theorizing about and modeling ATIs, and we suggest some solutions. These solutions include interpreting level-specific (unconflated) ATIs, understanding and ameliorating threats to adequate power for detecting ATIs, expanding focus beyond linear ATIs, and increasing the number of measurement occasions beyond two to allow use of a growth modeling framework for investigating ATIs. Incorporating some of these advances into future research can motivate new research questions about educational interventions and lead to new discoveries in the search for ATIs.

Multiculturalism and Women’s Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 342-356
Author(s):  
Denise Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Real World ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Minority Women ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Multiple Processes ◽  
Policy Conflicts ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Research

IPT scholars grapple with real-world policy conflicts over multiculturalism and women’s rights such as the French “burqa ban,” but they disagree about how these conflicts should be resolved. This chapter draws on empirical research to assess the competing claims of multiculturalists, liberal feminists, deliberative democrats, and postcolonial feminists on multiculturalism and women’s rights. The evidence suggests that IPT scholars have too often assumed that a conflict exists between multiculturalism and women’s rights, in part because they under-theorize culture, the category women, and the multiple processes generating injustice for women members of minority groups. The evidence indicates that minority women are best served when multiculturalism and women’s rights are not pitted against one another. The chapter explains how IPT scholars can contribute to this outcome, and concludes by proposing new research questions for scholars studying multiculturalism and women’s rights.

scholarly journals Navigating the Terrain of Entrepreneurship Education in Neoliberal Societies

2020 ◽  
pp. 251512742093544
Author(s):  
Karin Berglund ◽  
Ulla Hytti ◽  
Karen Verduijn
Keyword(s):  
Entrepreneurship Education ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Right ◽  
Entrepreneurial Society ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

This article offers reflections based on the special issue on unsettling entrepreneurship education (EEP 3(3)) in which contributions have resisted the tendency to see students as consumers with the ‘right’ to take part in entrepreneurship education (EE) so as to effectively shape their enterprising selves. Here we resume our editorial discussions of what unsettling entrepreneurship education could mean for us – as entrepreneurship researchers and as teachers – and seek to mark out new directions both for research and education by reflecting upon ethical perspectives, identity work, and how EE can be seen to create an affective and emotional workspace. These aspects not only invite us to ask new research questions, but may also challenge our position as teachers in EE and invite us to reflect upon our view of students. To frame the need of continuous reflection, when navigating the terrain of EE in neoliberal society, we both take off and arrive in the current Covid-19 pandemic and suggest that this crisis can teach us something as valuable as ‘standing still’, which helps us all to reconsider what kind of entrepreneurial society that we build together with our students in entrepreneurship education.

Touchy-Feely History: The ‘Stuff’ of American Culture

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-18
Author(s):  
Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
New Research

This state of the field essay examines recent trends in American Cultural History, focusing on music, race and ethnicity, material culture, and the body. Expanding on key themes in articles featured in the special issue of Cultural History, the essay draws linkages to other important literatures. The essay argues for more a more serious consideration of the products within popular culture, less as a reflection of social or economic trends, rather for their own historical significance. While the essay examines some classic texts, more emphasis is on work published within the last decade. Here, interdisciplinary methods are stressed, as are new research perspectives developing by non-western historians.

Narrating Society: Enacting ‘Immigrant’ Characters through Negotiating, Naturalization, and Forgetting

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanne Boersma
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Work ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Media And Communication

This article scrutinizes how ‘immigrant’ characters of perpetual arrival are enacted in the social scientific work of immigrant integration monitoring. Immigrant integration research produces narratives in which characters—classified in highly specific, contingent ways as ‘immigrants’—are portrayed as arriving and never as having arrived. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork at social scientific institutions and networks in four Western European countries, this article analyzes three practices that enact the characters of arrival narratives: negotiating, naturalizing, and forgetting. First, it shows how negotiating constitutes objects of research while at the same time a process of hybridization is observed among negotiating scientific and governmental actors. Second, a naturalization process is analyzed in which slippery categories become fixed and self-evident. Third, the practice of forgetting involves the fading away of contingent and historical circumstances of the research and specifically a dispensation of ‘native’ or ‘autochthonous’ populations. Consequently, the article states how some people are considered rightful occupants of ‘society’ and others are enacted to travel an infinite road toward an occupied societal space. Moreover, it shows how enactments of arriving ‘immigrant’ characters have performative effects in racially differentiating national populations and hence in narrating society. This article is part of the Global Perspectives, Media and Communication special issue on “Media, Migration, and Nationalism,” guest-edited by Koen Leurs and Tomohisa Hirata.

scholarly journals Mobile bystanders and rubbernecks, disaster tourists, and helpers. Towards a theoretical framework for critically studying action possibilities at accident sites

2021 ◽  
pp. 205015792098482
Author(s):  
Linus Andersson ◽  
Ebba Sundin
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Media Practices

This article addresses the phenomenon of mobile bystanders who use their smartphones to film or take photographs at accident scenes, instead of offering their help to people in need or to assist medical units. This phenomenon has been extensively discussed in Swedish news media in recent years since it has been described as a growing problem for first responders, such as paramedics, police, and firefighters. This article aims to identify theoretical perspectives that are relevant for analyzing mobile media practices and discuss the ethical implications of these perspectives. Our purpose is twofold: we want to develop a theoretical framework for critically approaching mobile media practices, and we want to contribute to discussions concerning well-being in a time marked by mediatization and digitalization. In this pursuit, we combine theory from social psychology about how people behave at traumatic scenes with discussions about witnessing in and through media, as developed in media and communication studies. Both perspectives offer various implications for normative inquiry, and in our discussion, we argue that mobile bystanders must be considered simultaneously as transgressors of social norms and as emphatic witnesses behaving in accordance with the digital media age. The article ends with a discussion regarding the implications for further research.

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