Digital Methods SUMMER SCHOOL 2016 Only Connect? [reader] 27 JUNE - A Critical Appraisal of Connecting Practices in the Age of Social Media 08 JULY 2016 #dmi16 Table of Contents Week 1: Connective action, global diaspora studies and digital methods Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2012). The logic of connective action. Information, Communication & Society. 15(5), 739-768. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661 Borra, E. & Rieder, B. (2014). Programmed method. Developing a toolset for capturing and analyzing tweets. Aslib Journal of Information Management. 66(3), 262-278 Diminescu, D. (2012). Introduction: Digital methods for the exploration, analysis and mapping of e-diasporas. Social Science Information. 51(4), 451–458. Kok, S., & Rogers, R. (2016). Rethinking migration in the digital age: Transglocalization and the Somali diaspora. Global Networks. doi:10.1111/glob.12127 Madianou, M. & Miller, D. (2012). Introduction. In M. Madianou & D. Miller (Eds.). Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. London: Routledge. Nayar, P. (2008). Postcolonializing Cyberculture: Race, Ethnicity and Critical Internet Studies, LittCrit, 34(1), 3-15. Odin, J. (1997). The Edge of Difference: Negotiations Between the Hypertextual and the Postcolonial. Modern Fiction Studies, 43(3), 598-630. Ponzanesi, S. and Leurs, K. (2014). On Digital Crossing in Europe. Crossings, Journal of Migration and Culture. 5(1), 3-22. Rieder, B. (2013). Studying facebook via data extraction: The Netvizz application. Proceedings of ACM Web Science 2013. New York: ACM. Rogers, R. (2017). Digital methods for cross-platform analysis: Studying co-linked, inter-liked and cross-hashtagged content. In J. Burgess, A. Marwick & Thomas Poell (Eds.). Sage Handbook of Social Media. London: Sage, forthcoming. Rogers, R. (2016). Foundations of digital methods: Query design. In M. Schaefer & K. van Es (Eds.). The datafied society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming. Rogers, R. (2014). Political research in the digital age. International Public Policy Review. 8(1), 73-87. Van der Velden, L. (2014). The third party diary: Tracking the trackers on Dutch governmental websites. NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies. 3(1), 195–217. Venturini, T., Jacomy, M., & Carvalho Pereira, D. (2015). Visual Network Analysis. Sciences Po Paris médialab Working Papers. Table of Contents Week 2: Data activism Beer, D. (2016). How should we do the history of Big Data? #JH%BUB4PDJFUZ 3(1). doi:10.1177/2053951716646135 Couldry, N., & Powell, A. (2014). Big Data from the Bottom Up. #JH%BUB4PDJFUZ, 1(2), 1–5. Dalton, C. & Thatcher, J. (2014). What does a critical data studies look like, and why do we care? Seven points for a critical approach to ‘big data’. Space and Society Open Site. https://societyandspace.com/material/commentaries/craig-dalton-and-jim-thatcher- what-does-a-critical-data-studies-look-like-and-why-do-we-care-seven-points-for-a-critical-approach-to-big-data/ Milan, S. (2016). Data activism as the new frontier of media activism in Yang, G. and Pickard, V. (eds.). Media Activism. London: Routledge. Powell, A. (2016). Hacking in the public interest: Authority, legitimacy, means, and ends. New Media & Society, 18(4), 600–616. Renzi, A., & Langlois, G. (2015). Data activism. In G. Langlois, J. Redden & G. Elmer (Eds). Compromised data: From social media to Big Data. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Schrock, A. R. (2016). Civic hacking as data activism and advocacy: A history from publicity to open government data. New Media & Society, 18(4), 581–599. Star, S. L. (1999). The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), 377–391. Taylor, L. (2015). Towards a contextual and inclusive data studies: A response to Dalton and Thatcher. Space and Society Open Site. https://societyandspace.com/material/commentaries/linnet-taylor-towards-a-contextual-and-inclusive-data-studies-a-response- to-dalton-and-thatcher/ W. Lance Bennett & Alexandra Segerberg THE LOGIC OF CONNECTIVE ACTION Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics From the Arab Spring and los indignados in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street (and beyond), large-scale, sustained protests are using digital media in ways that go beyond sending and receiving messages. Some of these action formations contain rela- tively small roles for formal brick and mortar organizations. Others involve well-estab- lished advocacy organizations, in hybrid relations with other organizations, using technologies that enable personalized public engagement. Both stand in contrast to the more familiar organizationally managed and brokered action conventionally associated with social movement and issue advocacy. This article examines the organ- izational dynamics that emerge when communication becomes a prominent part of organizational structure. It argues that understanding such variations in large-scale action networks requires distinguishing between at least two logics that may be in play: The familiar logic of collective action associated with high levels of organiz- ational resources and the formation of collective identities, and the less familiar logic of connective action based on personalized content sharing across media networks. In the former, introducing digital media do not change the core dynamics of the action. In the case of the latter, they do. Building on these distinctions, the article presents three ideal types of large-scale action networks that are becoming prominent in the contentious politics of the contemporary era. Keywords collective action; contentious politics; digital media Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 03:47 06 June 2016 (Received 14 November 2011; final version received 22 February 2012) With the world economy in crisis, the heads of the 20 leading economies held a series of meetings beginning in fall of 2008 to coordinate financial rescue policies. Wherever the G20 leaders met, whether in Washington, London, St. Andrews, Pittsburgh, Toronto, or Seoul, they were greeted by protests. In London, Information, Communication & Society Vol. 15, No. 5, June 2012, pp. 739–768 ISSN 1369-118X print/ISSN 1468-4462 online # 2012 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandfonline.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661 740 INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION & SOCIETY anti-capitalist, environmental direct activist, and non-governmental organization (NGO)-sponsored actions were coordinated across different days. The largest of these demonstrations was sponsored by a number of prominent NGOs including Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, Save the Children, and World Vision. This loose coalition launched a Put People First (PPF) campaign promoting public mobilization against social and environmental harms of ‘business as usual’ solutions to the financial crisis. The website for the campaign carried the simple statement: Even before the banking collapse, the world suffered poverty, inequality and the threat of climate chaos. The world has followed a financial model that has created an economy fuelled by ever-increasing debt, both financial and environmental. Our future depends on creating an economy based on fair distribution of wealth, decent jobs for all and a low carbon future. (Put People First 2009) The centerpiece of this PPF campaign was a march of some 35,000 people through the streets of London a few days ahead of the G20 meeting to give voice and show commitment to the campaign’s simple theme. The London PPF protest drew together a large and diverse protest with the emphasis on personal expression, but it still displayed what Tilly (2004, 2006) termed WUNC: worthiness embodied by the endorsements by some 160 promi- nent civil society organizations and recognition of their demands by various pro- minent officials; unity reflected in the orderliness of the event; numbers of participants that made PPF the largest of a series of London G20 protests and the largest demonstration during the string of G20 meetings in different world locations; and commitment reflected in the presence of delegations from some 20 different nations who joined local citizens in spending much of the day listening to speakers in Hyde Park or attending religious services sponsored by church-based development organizations.1 The large volume of generally positive press coverage reflected all of these characteristics, and responses from heads of state to the demonstrators accentuated the worthiness of the event (Bennett & Segerberg 2011).2 Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 03:47 06 June 2016 The protests continued as the G20 in 2010 issued a policy statement making it clear that debt reduction and austerity would be the centerpieces of a political program that could send shocks through economies from the United States and the UK, to Greece, Italy, and Spain, while pushing more decisive action on climate change onto the back burner. Public anger swept cities from Madison to Madrid, as citizens protested that their governments, no matter what their political stripe, offered no alternatives to the economic dictates of a so-called neoliberal economic regime that seemed to operate from corporate and financial power centers beyond popular accountability, and, some argued, even beyond the control of states. THE LOGIC OF CONNECTIVE ACTION 741 Some of these protests seemed to operate with surprisingly light involve- ment from conventional organizations. For example, in Spain ‘los indignados’ (the indignant ones) mobilized in 2011 under the name of 15M for the date (May 15) of the mass mobilization