Methods and Methodologies Dr Adi Kunstman - 23-01-19 This session will look at strategies of doing digital research in a multi-platform environment and address the difference between textual, visual, social and quantifiable data.

1. Digital methods
DR ADI KUNTSMAN
SENIOR LECTURER, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS/MANCHESTER ISCHOOL
COORDINATOR, SOCIAL MEDIA STUDY GROUP FOR PHD STUDENTS
A.KUNTSMAN@MMU.AC.UK

2. sessions
1. Strategies of doing digital research in a multi-platform environment. Textual, visual, social
and quantifiable data.
2. What is 'digital ethnography‘?
3. A surgery for your digital troubles: an open session based on your questions

3. Today:
digital research
in multi-platform
environments

4. Platform society
Van Dijk e. al. (2018): Platform have grown; govern most aspects of our lives.
◦ Datafication, commodification, selection.
◦ Platform affordances: what you can/cannot do
◦ Platfrom sociality
◦ Platform governance
Research questions:
◦ Which platform? Which methods?
◦ Separately or together?
◦ Synchronic or diachronic? (archives)
◦ Comparison?

5. Internet and Social Media Research-
what are we looking for?
Jill Rettberg Walker (2014) on the information we produce about ourselves:
Visual
Textual
Quantifiable

6. Types of materials to look for
 Textual
Visual
Quantifiable
Social

7. Textual research
Origins: literature
 Textual analysis: what do words tell us
Genre, content, story and plot, metaphors

8. Textual research
What do we look at?
Websites, discussions, blogs,
petitions, comments, tweets
What do we ask?
How is the story constructed?
How are people encouraged to
be engaged?

9. Visual research
Origins: art history, visual scholarship
Visual analysis: what do images tell us
Images, representations, styles

10. Visual research
Origins: film and television studies
Film analysis: what do videos tell us
Genres, representations, narratives

11. Visual research
What do we look at?
1. The use of images on social media (which? Why? Where?)
Popular trends (i.e. “Selfies”)
Creativity and remakes (i.e. memes)
2. The use of videos on social media (when? How? )
Short clips (embedded in FB, for example)- few seconds to
Stand-alone, longer videos

12. Social research
Origins: social research (sociology, anthropology)
People’s interactions – what people do (on-line)
People’s use of platforms: which, when, how?

13. Social research
What do we look at?
Social media platforms (FB, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube)
Social media communities (groups)
Which of the platforms are used? Are they used differently?
How is each platform used?

14. Social research
Practices of taking, sharing, displaying images
Twitter: tweeting, retweeting, replying, mentioning
Facebook: grouping, tagging
Use of hashtags
Geo-location
Virality
Participation (i.e. encouraged to … tweet? Post a selfie? Use hashtags?)

15. Quantifiable research
Origins: quantitative research, statistics
 What do numbers tell us
 Things that can be counted: numbers of tweets, comments, hashtags
 Other quantifiable data (see Rettberg)
“Big” and “small” data

16. Resources
José van Dijck, Thomas Poell, and Martijn de Waal (2018) The Platform Society: Public Values in a
Connective World, Oxford University Press.
Jill Rettberg Walker (2014) Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and
Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves, Palgrave http://jilltxt.net/books/Seeing-
Ourselves-Through-Technology-full-book.pdf