[Air-L] Call for Participation - Digital Methods Summer School 2013

[Esther Weltevrede]

Dear all,

The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) will host its 7th annual Summer School
from 24 June to 5 July 2013 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This year's
Summer School is dedicated to the challenges of studying social media data.
It is organized for new media researchers (broadly conceived), and is open
to (early stage) PhD candidates, advanced master's degree students, recent
graduates and motivated scholars. It is a working Summer School, in that
all participants work on projects, collectively conceived, that explore
this year's theme.

The announcement and call for participation are now online at
http://www.digitalmethods.net/. Please note that the early bird application
deadline is Wednesday 20 March 2013.

This year's local organizers are Simeona Petkova and Natalia Sanchez, and
are reachable together at info [at] digitalmethods.net or separately at
simeona [at] digitalmethods.net and natalia [at] digitalmethods.net. You
may drop them a line with any questions.

Feel free to forward the call to interested individuals.

Looking forward to your application and to the Summer School,
the Digital Methods team

Best wishes
Esther


Call for Participation - Digital Methods Summer School 2013

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School 2012] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvertje/7535028826/> [image:
Digital Methods Summer School
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School 2012] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvertje/7535118470/> [image:
Digital Methods Summer School 2012] [image: Digital Methods Summer School
2012] Digital Methods Summer School 2013: On the challenges of studying
social media data

New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam, 24 June - 5 July 2013

University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam
Directions and Map<https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Station+Amsterdam-Centraal,+Stationsplein,+Amsterdam,+The+Netherlands&daddr=Nieuwe+Doelenstraat+16,+1012+Binnenstad,+The+Netherlands&hl=en&sll=52.367931,4.894947&sspn=0.008267,0.022552&geocode=FZ86HwMdmcRKACHMVoG-KFT6aQ%3BFTsSHwMd47BKACkH3yH1vwnGRzEJJMQC_PB7hg&oq=Amsterdam,+Centraal&dirflg=r&ttype=now&noexp=0&noal=0&sort=def&mra=ls&t=m&start=0&z=14>
You
are not the API I used to know: On the challenges of studying social media
data

A set of #hashtagged tweets and @follow networks visualised to study crisis
response to a natural disaster. Facebook likes, shares, comments, and liked
comments tabulated over time for an activist page to study relationships
between content formats and engagement. LinkedIn profile completeness
percentages measured for a group of civil servants to study online
grooming. Social media data are employed increasingly for work in the arts
and social sciences, and are even becoming an expected research strategy
alongside the fieldwork, surveys and interviews when studying contemporary
states of affairs.

The 2013 Digital Methods Summer School would like to examine critically the
status of the findings, while at the same time reviewing and actively
employing the techniques. Is there increasingly a unified approach to the
study of social media data? Are there recipes and preferred tools (or
utensils)? Are we still allowed to hack the graph? The question of how to
study online data is increasingly a piece with how big data companies
provide them. More specifically, has polling APIs supplanted scraping as
the appropriate means of data collection? What are the effects of the
research ethics debate on social media research practice? There are also
the information graphics and data visualisations to consider. The preferred
outputs mark the return of the graph visualisation, if it ever went away.
What does the graph visualisation mean for the interpretation and
presentation of research findings? There is also the question of what is
actually being measured, apart from activity in social media. How to ground
the findings? In even more online data?

 About "Digital Methods" as Concept

Digital methods is a term coined<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/MoreIntro>
 as a counter-point to virtual methods, which typically digitize existing
methods and port them onto the Web. Digital methods, contrariwise, seek to
learn from the methods built into the dominant devices online, and
repurpose them for social and cultural research. That is, the challenge is
to study both the info-web as well as the social web with the tools that
organize them. There is a general protocol to digital methods. At the
outset stock is taken of the natively digital objects that are available
(links, tags, threads, etc.) and how devices such as search engines make
use of them. Can the device techniques be repurposed, for example by
remixing the digital objects they take as inputs? Once findings are made
with online data, where to ground them? Is the baseline still the offline,
or are findings to be grounded in more online data?

 About the Summer School

The Digital Methods Summer School, founded in 2007 together with the
Digital Methods Initiative, is directed by Professor Richard Rogers, Chair
in New Media & Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. The Summer
School is one training opportunity provided by the Digital Methods
Initiative (DMI). DMI also has a Winter
School<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool>,
which includes a mini-conference, where papers are presented and responded
to. Winter School papers are often the result of Summer School projects.
The Summer School is coordinated by two PhD candidates in New Media at the
University of Amsterdam, or affiliates. This year the coordinators are
Natalia Sanchez and Simeona Petkova both of the University of Amsterdam.
The Summer School has a technical staff as well as a design staff. The
Summer School also relies on a technical infrastructure of some nine
servers hosting tools and storing data. Participants bring their laptops,
learn method, undertake research projects, make reports, tools and graphics
and write them up on the Digital Methods wiki. The Summer School concludes
with final presentations. Often there are guests from non-governmental or
other organizations who present their issues. For instance,Women on
Waves<http://www.womenonwaves.org/>
 came along during the 2010 and Fair Phone <http://www.fairphone.com/> to
the 2012 Summer School. Digital Methods people are currently interning at
Greenpeace International and the Global Reporting
Initiative<https://www.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx>
.

Previous Digital Methods Summer Schools, 2007-2012,
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiSummerSchool.

What's it like? Digital Methods Summer School flickr stream
2012<http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvertje/sets/72157630494878374/>

The Digital Methods Initiative was founded with a grant from the Mondriaan
Foundation, and the Summer School is supported by the Center for Creation,
Content and Technology (CCCT), University of Amsterdam, organized by the
Faculty of Science with sponsorship from Platform Beta. Applications and
fees

To apply for the Digital Methods Summer School 2013, please send a one-page
letter explaining how digital methods training would benefit your current
work, and also enclose a CV. Mark your application "DMI Training
Certificate Program," and send to info [at] digitalmethods.net. The early
bird application deadline is 20 March 2013. Early bird candidates will be
informed on 21 March. The regular deadline for applications for the Summer
School is 25 April. Notices will be sent on 26 April. Please address your
application email to the Summer School coordinators, info [at]
digitalmethods.net. Informal queries may be sent to Simeona, simeona [at]
digitalmethods.net.

The Summer School costs EUR 295 per person. Accepted applicants will be
informed of the bank transfer details upon notice of acceptance to the
Summer School. The fee must be paid by 24 May 2013. Housing and
Accommodations

The Summer School is self-catered, and there are abundant cafes and a
university mensa nearby. The Digital Methods Summer School is located in
the heart of Amsterdam. There are limited accommodations available to
participants at reasonable rates. Please contact the local organizers for
details. For those who prefer non-University accommodations, we suggest
airbnb or similar. For shortest stay, there is Hotel Le
Coin<http://www.lecoin.nl/indexEN.html>,
where we have a university discount. Summer School Training Certificate

The Digital Methods Summer School issues completion certificates to
participants who follow the Summer School program, and complete a
significant contribution to a Summer School project. For previous Summer
School projects, see for example
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WikipediaAsASpaceOfControversy.

 Schedule

The Summer School meets every day. Please bring your laptop. We will
provide abundant connectivity. We start generally at 9:30 in the morning,
and end around 5:30. There are morning talks two-three days per week. On
the last Friday we have a boat trip on the canals of Amsterdam.

 Preparations: Online Tutorials and Lectures

Digital Methods researchers have given tutorials and talks which are useful
and sometimes even entertaining!

Audio and Video Tutorials <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiTutorials>

 Social Media & User-Generated Content

Twitter hashtag #dmi13

We shall have a list of summer school participants on Twitter How to do
Digital Methods? Presentation materials from the 2012 Summer School

There are many highlights, including a digital methods tool medley!
Summerschool
2012 Presentations<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/Summerschool2012Presentations>

Together with an overview of all Summer School projects from last
year: Projects
2012
 <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/Dmi2012Projects> Suggestions for
Evening Hangouts

Amsterdam suggestions for the
evenings<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/Summerschool2012Eveninghangouts>
. Digital Methods Winter School 2012 and 2013 Revisited

Apart from the Summer Schools, the other opportunity for training and
organized workshops (as well as presenting a paper from a project that you
worked on during the Summer School) is the Winter School. The Digital
Methods Winter School 2013 was concerned with the data sprint and the book
sprint <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2013> (and other
short-form method). The 2012 Winter School was dedicated to "Interfaces for
the Cloud <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2012>" and API
critique, where Metahaven, the critical Dutch design group, presented their
work that actually renders the politics of the cloud. See Daniel van der
Velden's article<http://www.e-flux.com/journal/captives-of-the-cloud-part-i/>
 (including part
II<http://www.e-flux.com/journal/captives-of-the-cloud-part-iI/>).
The Winter School 2013 was dedicated to short-form
method<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2013>
 and the book sprint. We share the book sprint expert, Adam Hyde, with his
talk recorded, available online <http://data.booksprints.net/vid/>.

We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam in the Summertime!