[Air-L] "Definitive" citation for the concept of digital trace data?

Robert Ackland robert.ackland at anu.edu.au
Mon Oct 5 15:38:34 PDT 2015


Marc Smith and colleagues have used the accounting metaphor in the context of digital trace data, see for example, the following (http://www.connectedaction.net/marc-smith/):

Gleave, Eric and Marc Smith. 2007. “Reflections and Reactions to Social Accounting Meta-Data.” Communities and Technologies 2007. pp87-106 Springer.

Smith, Marc., Turner, Tammara, Gleave, Eric. Sharing Social Accounting Metadata – Lessons from Netscan, Conference on eSocial Science 2007.

As an economist (and I even worked for a short time as an accountant working with ledgers containing $, not digital traces of social activity...) I'm very receptive to quantitative approaches for studying online behaviour.  But in response to your question: "can someone argue that 'digital traces' are fundamentally different than ledger entries?  [You're going to have to work hard, I suspect...]":

Imagine you went to your social accountant.  He/she might be able to determine that your net position over the past year has changed by X hyperlinks, Y Twitter follows, X Facebook likes etc.  But how do you value and aggregate each of these types of digital transactions, given there is no common currency?  It depends on who you are, and who you are receiving attention from and sending it to.

So, I would say that digital trace data can definitely be represented in some kind of ledger but the whole point of accounting systems is providing meaningful aggregations of transactions i.e. ascribing value, and that is more challenging here.

Related to this, the following paper introduces the concept of attention-metric utility (a network analogue to money-metric utility):

R. Ackland and L. Wu (2013), "Index Numbers and Information Networks," working paper. http://voson.anu.edu.au/papers/InfoNetworkIndexNumbers.pdf

Regards,
Rob

________________________________________
From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Elijah Wright <elijah.wright at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 6 October 2015 5:44 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] "Definitive" citation for the concept of digital trace     data?

Shouldn't this 'early prehistory' eventually veer off into something like
the early history of accounting as a discipline?  >=3k years ago, to wit.

Log entries (digital or otherwise) are transactional events, generally....
can someone argue that 'digital traces' are fundamentally different than
ledger entries?  [You're going to have to work hard, I suspect...]

I would be very interested in hearing about some sort of digital trace that
isn't representable as either a sequence of events with metadata or as a
time-series of values... given that those are the things I usually see.
 [These days I do a lot of metrics and measurement and logging....]

Prove me short-sighted please :)

--e



On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 1:27 PM, Robert Ackland <robert.ackland at anu.edu.au>
wrote:

> Kevin - I like the term "digital trace data" and used extensively in my
> textbook Web Social Science (SAGE Publications, 2013).  I consciously did
> not use the term "big data" in that book, because I thought digital trace
> data was a better description of the data I was focusing on.  I'm sure SAGE
> wish I *had* used the term "big data", as it would have been good for
> sales....  I've recently bowed to the inevitable and now use "big data" in
> proposals for short courses/session etc.
>
> To get back to your question, I am of course not proposing the following
> as definitive but I do refer to tools for "collecting and analysing digital
> traces of human activity":
>
> Ackland, R. (2005), "Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks
> (VOSON) - Progress and Plans," refereed paper presented at the First
> International Conference on e-Social Science, 22-24 June 2005, University
> of Manchester. http://voson.anu.edu.au/papers/NCeSS_Ackland.pdf
>
> Regards
>
> --
>
> Dr Robert Ackland
> Associate Professor, School of Sociology and ANU Centre for Social
> Research and Methods
> Leader, Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON) Lab
> Australian National University
>
> My book:
> Web Social Science: Concepts, Data and Tools for Social Scientists in the
> Digital Age (SAGE Publications)
>
> e-mail: robert.ackland at anu.edu.au
> homepage: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/ackland-rj
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Kevin G
> Crowston <crowston at syr.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 6 October 2015 2:17 AM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: [Air-L] "Definitive" citation for the concept of digital trace
> data?
>
> An argument for studies of online behaviour is that the systems collect
> records of what people do and that such digital trace data provide a rich
> source of evidence for all kinds of studies. I’m trying to trace back that
> idea but it seems so taken for granted that there’s often not a citation.
> So I wondered what people consider the definitive citation for that idea,
> and for the term "trace data” in this context more specifically.
>
> For example, there’s a 2008 handbook article:
>
> Welser, H. T., Smith, M., Fisher, D., and Gleave, E. 2008. "Distilling
> Digital Traces: Computational Social Science Approaches to Studying the
> Internet," in The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods, N. Fielding,
> R.M. Lee and G. Blank (eds.). London, England: SAGE Publications, Ltd, pp.
> 116–141.
>
> But I suspect there are even earlier sources.
>
> Kevin Crowston | Distinguished Professor of Information Science | School
> of Information Studies
>
> Syracuse University
> 348 Hinds Hall
> Syracuse, New York 13244
> t (315) 443.1676 f 315.443.5806 e crowston at syr.edu
>
> crowston.syr.edu
>
>
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