Cfp: DMI mini-conference & workshop, 24-25 January 2011

New Media & Digital Culture, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT Amsterdam, the Netherlands Room 0.12 Monday 24 January, starting time: 9.30am Tuesday 25 January, starting time: 9.30am

The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI), Amsterdam, is holding its third annual Winter mini-conference and workshop. For a report on the first conference, please see http://www.easst.net/review/june2009.

The mini-conference, on 24-25 January, is an opportunity for digital methods and allied researchers to present short papers (approximately 5000-8000 words), and receive feedback from respondents. All participants who give papers also will serve as a respondent to at least one paper, if not two. Those giving papers should prepare a short oral presentation (a 5-10 minute rehearsal of the argument), and the respondents have up to 15 minutes to respond. Each paper is expected to take 35-40 minutes.

The firm deadline for receipt of papers is 17 January 2011. The schedule, the papers and the names of the respondents per paper will be circulated to all participants on 18 January 2011.

The mini-conference is followed by the full-day workshop, on 25 January.

Mini-Conference

Monday 24 January

9.30 Welcome - Prof. Richard Rogers, New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam

9.35 Session I: Temporalities & Spatialities

Chair: Erik Borra

Esther Weltevrede, Atemporal Engine, and why a query’s date is important

Respondents: Richard Rogers and Michael Stevenson

Simeona Petkova, Memories on the Social Web: Dynamics of Remembering and Forgetting on the Social Web Platforms

Respondents: Anne Helmond and Margarita Osipian

Margarita Osipian, Envisioning the Margins: The visual construction of the prison and the prisoner on government and prison reform sites

Respondent: Sabine Niederer and Marc Tuters

10.45 Coffee

11.00 Session II: Platform Studies

Chair: Michael Stevenson

Thomas Poell, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr as Platforms of Alternative Journalism: The Social Media Account of the 2010 Toronto G-20 Protests

Respondents: Lonneke van der Velden and Erik Borra

Lonneke van der Velden, Facebook speak up!

Respondents: Natalia Sanchez and Carolin Gerlitz

Catalina Iorga, Facebook and the Socio-Semantic Turn of the Web

Respondents: Thomas Poell and Anne Helmond

Carolin Gerlitz and Anne Helmond, Hit, Link, Like and Share: Organizing the social and the fabric of the web in a Like economy

Respondents: Sabine Niederer and Catalina Iorga

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Session III: Digital Methods Reconsidered

Chair: Carolin Gerlitz

Richard Rogers, After Cyberspace: Data-rich Media Online

Respondents: Marc Tuters and Simeona Petkova

Dominik Hasler, Visualisation in Digital Methods of Internet Research: An Epistemological Critique Inspired by Cartography

Respondents: Richard Rogers and Erik Borra

Sabine Niederer, From Technology to the Technicity of Content: Topologies of the Web

Respondents: Lonneke van der Velden and Esther Weltevrede

Erik Borra, Rethinking the Web as Object of Study

Respondents: Michael Stevenson and Thomas Poell

15.00 Tea

15.30 Session IV: National Webs & Social Webs

Chair: Esther Weltevrede

Natalia Sanchez, Spanish language vs. Spain content: The impossibility of the local

Respondents: Liliana Bounegru and Carolin Gerlitz

Liliana Bounegru, Mapping the Abortion Debate on the Romanian Web

Respondents: Natalia Sanchez and Richard Rogers

16.15 Session V: Indoors and Outdoors

Chair: Lonneke van der Velden

Marc Tuters, Drifting Through Locative

Respondents: Michael Dieter and Catalina Iorga

Michael Dieter, Against Obsolescence: 8-Bit, Counterplay and the Gamic Child

Respondents: Almila Akdag and Dominik Hasler

Michael Stevenson, The Web as Exception: Web Discourses at Hotwired, 1994-1997

Respondents: Michael Dieter and Esther Weltevrede

Workshop Projects

• NationalLeaks
• CableTimeline
• ResponsesoftheSources

Studying Wikileaks: Output of brainstorm session

National: Natalia, Bernhard, Catalina, Liliana, Margarita

• How are the leaks present in different national webs (and other national spheres)? Do the cables organize publics nationally?
• What type of sources are prominent in (universal) search for various local domain Googles?
• Resonance / echo for all leaks for a particular country
• How is wikileaks framed in different national webs (as seen through local domain Googles / spheres)

Embassy: Anne, Lonneke, Liliana, Marc, Kimmy

• What's the embassy website's "public face" around the time of a particular cable. Correlate cable content with embassy content.
• Do embassies acknowledge {wikileaks, assange, cablegate}?

Time: Dominik, Simeona, Carolin, Esther

• Timestamped content. Temporal structure of leaked content itself, and how it might effect process of taking up the content. 'Timing'
• Have the old leaks been forgotten or are they still discussed?

Infrastructure / geo

• How has the Wikileaks struggle to stay online been organized and how can it be mapped?
• What is the geographical distribution of the mirror sites? http://labs.vis4.net/wikileaks/mirrors/
• Geographical selection of cables: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks (Can also be done through offices)

Uptake

• How do different media (not directly correlated to wikileaks) take up wikileaks?
• What websites link to specific documents? In case of Afghan War diaries national discussion. Is it the same for Wikileaks?
• Study of global coverage of wikileaks on Twitter. Content analysis to see whether it is discussed in positive or negative way. Majority of tweets are 'announcements'. In the beginning mostly positive, later on mostly negative.

Other

• What kind of impact has it made in the 'real' world? E.g. 'Tunesian leak' + twitter revolution. track http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/06/08TUNIS679.html on Twitter through time, geolocate and see whether it traces back to Tunesia? Only 8000 out of 500000 tweets concerning (late 'sample') mention wikileaks.
• Which platforms facilitate the diffusion of data most and with what effects? Attitude towards leaked data/Wikileaks. Dave Winer
• What are the new technical devices developed in the aftermath of cablegate? Both in terms of controlling content and accessing content.
• Twitter accounts of embassadors
• What can we read from the visualizations?