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Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research

herausgegeben von: Sebastian Kubitschko, Anne Kaun

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This collection reflects the need for suitable methods to answer emerging questions that result from the ever-changing media environment. As media technologies and infrastructures become inseparably interwoven with social constellations, scholars from varying disciplines increasingly investigate their characteristics, functioning, relevance and impact – facing new methodological challenges as well as opportunities. Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research engages with the substantial need to rethink established methods to research acute changes in the media environment. The book gathers chapters dedicated to the multifacetedness and liveliness of emerging methods – from lifelogging and ethnography to digital methods and visualization – while embedding them in the rich history of interdisciplinary empirical research. Innovation here is a call for widening and rethinking research methods to stimulate a sophisticated debate on and exploration of contemporary methodological approaches for scholars at various levels of academic life. Accompanied by introductory sections of prominent scholars, the majority of empirical studies gathered in this volume are accomplished through early-career scholars who strive to advance cutting-edge and in parts even provocative approaches for the study of media and communication.

'Across the sprawling and diverse domain of media and communication research, digital methods have emerged and evolved alongside the digitisation of communication at all scales. At the same time, new advances and hybrid practices in qualitative and creative sociocultural research more broadly have occurred across the humanities and social sciences. In this vibrant, multidisciplinary collection, an international cohort of established and emerging authors model, explore and interrogate the cutting edge of these shifts.'
- Jean Burgess (QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. An Introduction to Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research

Abstract

Kubitschko and Kaun explicate the book’s aim to actively and prolifically approach methodological challenges and opportunities by bringing together empirical research about media transformations as well as studies that do research through media. The chapter highlights that the book gathers unique insights to innovative methodological approaches in media and communication studies while embedding these in the rich history of interdisciplinary empirical research of various fields. Kubitschko and Kaun advocate an inclusive understanding of ‘innovation’ to denote the lively and productive qualities of emerging methods. Innovation here is a call for widening and rethinking research methods to further understandings of the role media technologies and infrastructures play in society. Above all, methodological innovation takes place in doing. To innovate one has to develop, apply and critically reflect on research methods.

Sebastian Kubitschko, Anne Kaun

Materiality

Frontmatter

Chapter 2. Engaging (Past) Participants: The Case of radicalprintshops.org

Abstract

Baines persuasively describes her experiment to mobilize the participatory potential of wikis through the instigation of the open access wiki, radicalprintshops.org. While wikis are mostly utilized as a means for closed groups in academic research to manage research data Baines conceives it as a method for research. The chapter explicates how wikis can act as an important part of empirical research in two ways: first, radicalprintshops.org is an attempt to balance the nature of the research process and its final form with the collectivist politics and practices of the research subjects; second, the aspiration is to engender participants’ interest and generate new empirical material to draw on. Without losing sight of the potential and actual value for the principled and instrumental aims of the wiki, Baines discusses the developing challenges and contradictions the experiment raises.

Jess Baines

Chapter 3. A Materialist Media Ecological Approach to Studying Urban Media in/of Place

Abstract

Despard develops an approach to studying the interactivity of media and place together based on theories of an inclusive, materialist media ecology. Her qualitative research implies an attention to what different sites and communication technologies can do as opposed to what they mean, as well as to the relations of production and circulation that enable and sustain those capacities. Baines presents here a strategy for the development of site- and media-specific methods capable of both describing and critically exploiting the interactivity of place, practice and technology. Finally, the chapter presents research on the affordances and constraints of Instagram in relation to the visibility of a contested public place in Glasgow, Scotland.

Erin Despard

Chapter 4. Socio-spatial Approaches for Media and Communication Research

Abstract

Sak handles digital media research through an architectural/urban viewpoint. The main line of argument is that, research on digital media does and can further benefit from socio-spatial research approaches. The chapter starts by explaining briefly the socio-spatial attributes of the digital realm and gives an overview of the ways in which methods and approaches of urban, environmental and behavioral studies are being adopted for media and communication research. Finally, Sak advocates a socio-spatial approach that can be employed by further research on the digital realm.

Segah Sak

Technology

Frontmatter

Chapter 5. Neither Black Nor Box: Ways of Knowing Algorithms

Abstract

Bucher uses the concept of the black box as a heuristic device to discuss the nature of algorithms in contemporary media platforms, and how we, as scholars and students interested in this nature, might attend to and study algorithms, despite, or even because of, their seemingly secret nature. The argument is made that despite the usefulness in pointing out some of the epistemological challenges relating to algorithms, the figure of the black box constitutes somewhat of a distraction from other, perhaps more pressing, questions and issues. Moving beyond the notion that algorithms are black boxes, the chapter synthesizes and extends existing approaches and makes a case for using well-known methods to new domains, not only generating knowledge about emerging issues and practices, but contributing to (re)inventing methods.

Taina Bucher

Chapter 6. Sketching Bitcoin: Empirical Research of Digital Affordances

Abstract

Velasco discusses contemporary literature on Bitcoin and distinguish between technical and social research, in an effort to provide a basis for identifying native social structures within this digital assemblage. The chapter is particularly interested in digital research sprouted from the technical affordances of digital objects, yet directed towards socio-political enquiries. With this as a guidance, Velasco develops indicators and a method to map some of the entities of the Bitcoin network on a geographical canvas. The chapter presents this method in detail, and discusses what it is able to show and what are its attached limitations. Ultimately, Velasco argues that many digital methods share unavoidable constraints for social research, embedded in their own digital objects: digital grammar, framework design intentions and epistemological clauses.

Pablo R. Velasco

Chapter 7. Beyond Blobology: Using Psychophysiological Interaction Analyses to Investigate the Neural Basis of Human Communication Phenomena

Abstract

Huskey shows how rapid advances in brain-imaging technologies have allowed for the systematic investigation of the mind/brain and researchers are increasingly utilizing these methods to examine the neural basis of human communication behavior. The chapter introduces communication scholars interested in conducting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations to psychophysiological interaction analyses (PPI). Huskey discusses the methodological particulars associated with using a PPI analysis to test the synchronization theory of flow before concluding with a broader outlook on applications to communication theory and research. Specifically, the chapter discusses how investigations of neural connectivity can be used for theoretical falsification, conceptual refinement, and distinguishing constructs that have similar phenomenological characteristics and behavioral outcomes.

Richard Huskey

Chapter 8. As We Should Think? Lifelogging as a Re-emerging Method

Abstract

Frigo provides an alternative way to look at lifelogging and goes as far as to propose it as an indispensable method for scholars to better sense and understand the complex media-generated landscape around them. The chapter provides a broader historical contextualization of lifelogging and deepens the contemporary discussion on everyday life increasingly governed by sensors and algorithms. Inviting media scholars to embrace technical complexity in an auto-ethnographic fashion, Frigo introduces a set of instructions on how to get started to lifelog as a research method. Lastly, the chapter presents Frigo’s own manual lifelogging methodology as a concrete example of information retrieval and subsequent knowledge production.

Alberto Frigo

Experience

Frontmatter

Chapter 9. Visual Ethnography and the City: On the Dead Ends of Reflexivity and Gentrification

Abstract

LaDue examines two critical methodological turns: the reflexive turn in ethnographic methods as an attempted methodological fix for colonialist relationships in anthropology, and the gentrification critique of urban development as an attempted discursive and theoretical fix for pro-growth development. The chapter gives a brief overview of the reflexive turn, and emphasizes its limitations. Next it describes how the critical lens of gentrification is analogous to reflexivity and why it is productive to understand this mirrored relationship as part of a structural positionality of power and whiteness. Taking off from here, the chapter presents a possible methodological approach to break with this orientation. The clarity in understanding these propositions is based on LaDue’s qualitative research on a community organization in Durham, USA.

Emily LaDue

Chapter 10. Exploring Inclusive Ethnography as a Methodology to Account for Multiple Experiences

Abstract

Sartoretto shows the necessity of ethnography inspired methodologies that are attentive to communication as an open-ended process to better understand media related practices. The chapter highlights the ways multimedia ethnographic fieldwork is useful to inform research that seeks to understand realities in transitional and unequal societies outside the Euro-American context. Sartoretto also explicates that a too strong focus on analyzing the significances for social action of new technologies that are unequally available across different groups tends to give an eschewed view of the democratizing potentials of these technologies. By focusing on the experiences of a marginalized group in Brazil that is geographically distant from urban centers and does not have access to the most advanced technologies, the chapter broadens the horizons of analysis of the interplay between social action and media.

Paola Sartoretto

Chapter 11. Interviewing Against the Odds

Abstract

Kumar demonstrates that the increasing abundance of digital data to fuel empirical research is equipped to tell us much more about the West than about the rest of the world, particularly the global South, which still lacks representation in our increasingly digital media landscape. The chapter discusses some of the challenges that arise when researchers set out to collect data from communities that are under-served, under-resourced, and under-represented. Based on her own ethnographic experiences Kumar shows how the hurdles encountered by researchers in these contexts are not merely logistical or physical. The greater challenge becomes discerning the questions to ask that are relevant and understanding how the hidden or less obvious socially constructed lenses such as gender, class, caste, among others influence the data that is to be collected.

Neha Kumar

Visualization

Frontmatter

Chapter 12. Ways of Seeing Data: Toward a Critical Literacy for Data Visualizations as Research Objects and Research Devices

Abstract

Gray, Bounegru, Milan and Ciuccarelli contribute towards a critical literacy for data visualizations as research objects and devices. The chapter argues for methodological reflexivity around the use of data visualizations in research as both instruments and objects of study. The authors develop a heuristic framework for studying three forms of mediation which data visualizations enact – drawing on research and insights from new media studies, science and technology studies, the history and philosophy of science, cultural studies and critical theory. The chapter illustrates these three forms of mediation with an analysis of visualizations of public finances from civil society organizations, media outlets and public institutions. The authors conclude with an argument towards a broader program of critical literacy for reading and doing research with data visualizations.

Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Stefania Milan, Paolo Ciuccarelli

Chapter 13. Urban Sensing: Potential and Limitations of Social Network Analysis and Data Visualization as Research Methods in Urban Studies

Abstract

Simeone and Patelli, building upon their experience as designers and scholars within the Urban Sensing research project, provide materials for scholars and researchers to reflect upon the potential and limitations of social network analysis and data visualization as research methods in urban studies. The chapter starts with a fundamental consideration of the limitations and the distortions inherent in any measurement and technical mediation, considering the particular context of evaluations stemming from quantitative analyses of big data. Simeone and Patelli then map out precursory initiatives and projects that made use of the spatial web to study contemporary cities. Based on concrete empirical examples the methodological limitations and potentialities of Urban Sensing are discussed; which lead to the authors’ reflections on the relevance of sensing the urban through the social web.

Luca Simeone, Paolo Patelli

Chapter 14. Mapping Topics in International Climate Negotiations: A Computer-Assisted Semantic Network Approach

Abstract

Baya-Laffite and Cointet map the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations topic structure and evolution over 20 years using a digital corpus from the most renowned internal journal of the negotiations available online, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB). The authors’ methodological strategy combines text mining, network analysis and data visualization tools. The chapter shows how this mixed-method strategy applied to a digital corpus drawn from the ENB website, makes it possible to map climate change negotiations. Mixing traditional research methods and computer-assisted techniques, as well as manual and automated operations results in a series of unique new visual syntheses of the UNFCCC process. Narrating the visualizations allows distant readings of topics’ semantic structure and topic trajectories and thereby to test the robustness of the maps as well as the tools and methods used to produce them.

Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Jean-Philippe Cointet

Chapter 15. ‘Creative’ and Participatory Visual Approaches in Audience Research

Abstract

Lobinger shows how visual communication research is not only concerned with the analysis of visual material and the related processes of production, reception, use and effects, but also focuses on the ways in which visuals can be used for research purposes. The chapter discusses a particularly valuable subgroup of enabling and creative techniques: creative visual methods, that is methods in which visual material is used or produced during the research process. Visual methods can be used as stand-alone approaches. However, as the chapter demonstrates, it is most useful to combine them with open-ended interviews, focus groups or observations. Lobinger presents findings from a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative research through Q-sort.

Katharina Lobinger

Backmatter

Titel: Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research
herausgegeben von: Sebastian Kubitschko
Anne Kaun
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-40700-5
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40699-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40700-5