Global events like a pandemic or climate change are massive in scope
but experienced at the local, lived, microscopic level. What sorts of methodologies and
mindsets can help critical internet researchers, functioning as interventionists or
activists, find traction by oscillating between these levels? How can we push (further)
against the boundaries of research methods to build stronger coalitions and more impactful
outcomes for social change among groups of scholars/researchers? This panel presents four
papers addressing these questions based on a large scale online autoethnography in 2020.
This “Massive/Micro” project simultaneously used and studied the angst and novelty of
isolation during a pandemic, activating researchers, activists, and artists to explore the
massive yet microscopic properties of COVID-19 as a “glocal” phenomenon. The challenge?
Working independently and microscopically through intense focus on the Self but also working
with distributed, largely unknown collaborators, in multiple platforms. The emerging shape
of the project itself showcases the challenges and possibilities of how research projects at
scale can (or don’t) reflect and build social movements. The panel’s four papers situate the
project through a kaleidoscope of perspectives featuring participants from 7 countries, who
variously explore: the value of the project for precarious or early career researchers, how
MMS worked as both collaborative space and critical pedagogy, how non-institutional or
playful experimentation in asynchronous collaborations can lead to new synergies; and how
MMS developed an independent life of its own, beyond studying COVID to generating multiple
communities of future digital research practice.
Cyber-safety and COVID-19 in the early years: A research agenda
