1. Digital Methods Tool Medley
Digital Methods Summer School 2015, Amsterdam, 29 June - 10 July
Anne Helmond @silvertje
Tomás Saraceno, galaxies forming along filaments, Venice Biennial 2009

2. Thanks to
• Erik Borra
• Emile den Tex
• Bernhard Rieder

3. Medley?
• a diverse assortment or mixture
• a musical composition made up of
a series of songs or short pieces

4. Digital Methods Initiative (DMI):
new methods and tools for social
and cultural research

5. DMI tool database
tools.digitalmethods.net

6. DMI tool database
tools.digitalmethods.net

7. Cablegate
• Research question
• Operationalization
• Method: often a chain of tools

8. The Response of the Source
Question: Do the sources acknowledge cablegate?
1. Get all links for US embassy websites:
http://www.usembassy.gov/
2. Compile list of embassies mentioned in cables:
http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
3. Compare lists
4. Query mentioned embassies for:
1. Wikileaks
2. "Julian Assange”
3. Assange
4. Cablegate
5. Get number of cables per embassy
6. Visualize output

9. Aim: get links

10. Tool: Link ripper
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/linkRipper/

11. Result: links!

12. Repeat & paste in spreadsheet

13. Tool: Triangulate
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/triangulate/

14. Aim: Acknowledgement of leak?

15. Tool: Googlescraper
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/

16. Result: tagclouds (starting point
for further analysis)

17. The nationality of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

18. Search as research
[…] the point of departure of search as research,
or societal search, may be summarized as follows:
we look at Google results and see society, instead
of Google. That is to say, including its ‘artifacts,’
engine results put much on display – from source
competition and standing to longevity and
commitment (Rogers 2013: 110).

19. Research question
Can the search engine Google be
repurposed to show which rights are
specific per country?

20. Query Google countries
.nl (Dutch), .be (Dutch,
French), .com/.co.uk/.com.au/
(English), .it (Italian), .ro
(Romanian), .md (Moldavian), .ca
(French, English), .fr
(French), .de/.at/.lu (German), .fi
(Finnish), .se (Swedish), .ee
(Estonian), .ru (Russian)

21. “Query design”
“Query design” is the practice of
formulating a query so the results
can be interpreted as indications
and findings (however clue-like), as
opposed to mere information
retrieved or optimization and
manipulation exposed (however
fascinating) (Rogers 2013, 111).

22. “rights” in national terminology
• Google.se with query “rattigheter” (13.07.09)
• Google.fi with query “oikeudet” (13.07.09)
• Google.ee with query “oigused” (15.07.09)
• Google.lv with query “tiesibas” (16.07.09)
• Google.co.uk with query “rights” (13.07.09)
• Google.nl with query “rechten” (13.07.09)
• Google.fr with query “droits” (14.07.09)
• Google.pt with query “direitos” (14.07.09)
• Google.es with query “derechos” (13.07.09)

23. The nationalities of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

24. The nationalities of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

25. The nationalities of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

26. Mapping the Dutch blogosphere
https://www.issuecrawler.net/

27. Tool: IssueCrawler

28. Result: network graph
IssueCrawler -> Gephi

29. The historical Dutch blogosphere

30. Source: Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org

31. Aim: Get links

32. Tool: Harvester
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/harvestUrls/

33. Dutch blogosphere: active blogs
Tool: Censorship Explorer
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/proxies/

34. Dutch blogosphere (in)active blogs

35. Tool: Censorship explorer

37. Tool: Censorship explorer
https://mappingiranonline.digitalmethods.net/

38. Tool: Dorling map generator
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/dorling/

39. Tool: Instagram scraper
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/instagram/

40. Result: images + (meta)data

41. Tool: DownThemAll!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/

42. Tool: DMI Twitter Capturing and
Analysis Toolset (DMI-TCAT)
https://github.com/digitalmethodsinitiative/dmi-tcat

43. Tool: YouTube Data Tools
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/netvizz/youtube/

44. Tool: Netvizz
https://apps.facebook.com/netvizz/

45. Tool: Tracker Tracker
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/trackerTracker/

46. BONUS TOOLS!

47. Open Refine
http://openrefine.org/

48. Open Refine
http://openrefine.org/

49. Palladio
Palladio is a web-based platform for the
visualization of complex, multi-dimensional data.
http://palladio.designhumanities.org/

50. Tools from our colleagues in Paris
http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/

51. Tool: Table 2 Net
http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/table2net/

52. Tools from our colleagues in Milan
http://raw.densitydesign.org/

53. Tool: RAW
http://raw.densitydesign.org/

54. kthnxbai!
www.digitalmethods.net
Anne Helmond @silvertje
Tomás Saraceno, galaxies forming along filaments, Venice Biennial 2009