[Air-L] Public Lecture: Richard Rogers, 'Otherwise Engaged'

[Benjamin Roberts]

    Richard Rogers, 'Otherwise Engaged – social media from vanity
    metrics to critical analytics'

Date: 8 June
Time: 4pm
Location: Silverstone SB121, University of Sussex BN1 9RH

You can register to attend this event here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/otherwise-engaged-social-media-from-vanity-metrics-to-critical-analytics-tickets-34849789659

This lecture is part of the AHRC-funded Automation Anxiety
<http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/automationanxiety/>network and hosted by
Sussex Humanities Lab <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/shl/>

In the age of social media the dominant mode of engagement is
distraction. Whilst appearing oxymoronic, distracted modes of engagement
have invited the coining of such terms as ‘flickering man’, ‘continuous
partial attention’ and ‘ambient awareness.’ One’s engagement in social
media (however distracted) is also routinely measured. Klout scores and
similar are often called ‘vanity metrics’ because they measure success
or ’success theater’ in social media. The notion of vanity metrics
implies at least three projects: a critique of metrics concerning both
the object of measurement as well as their capacity to measure
unobtrusively or only to encourage performance. The second is a
corrective interface project, for users are continually distracted by
number badges calling to be clicked; there is a movement afoot
(initiated by John Seely Brown) for so-called ‘encalming technology’.
The talk, however, focuses on the third project, i.e., how one may
rework the metrics. In all, I make four moves. In an application of
digital methods, which seeks to repurpose online devices and their
methods for social research, I propose to repurpose Klout scores and
other (media monitoring) engagement measures for social research.
Building upon ‘alt metrics’ for science, an alternative metrics project,
I propose another one, albeit for social issue spaces rather than for
science. In order to do so, I call for a change in the networks under
study by social researchers, that is, a shift from the social network
(with its vanity metrics) to the issue network. The change of networks
(so to speak) enables concentrating on the opportunities for an
alternative metrics for the social (together with social issue
engagement), which I call critical analytics. Critical analytics would
seek to measure the ‘otherwise engaged,’ or other modes of engagement
(than vanity) such as dominant voice, concern, commitment, positioning
and alignment, thereby furnishing digital methods with a conceptual and
applied research agenda concerning online metrics.

Richard Rogers
<http://www.uva.nl/profiel/r/o/r.a.rogers/r.a.rogers.html> is Professor
of New Media & Digital Culture, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam.
He is director of the Govcom.org <http://govcom.org/> Foundation as well
as the Digital Methods Initiative, known for the development of the
Issuecrawler and other software tools for the study of online data.
Rogers also directs the Netherlands Research School for Media Studies.
He is author of Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004),
awarded best information science book of the year by the American
Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) and Digital
Methods (MIT Press, 2013), awarded outstanding book of the year by the
International Communication Association (ICA). Rogers has received
research grants from among other institutions as the Open Society
Foundations, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and Gates Foundation

If you have any questions about the event please contact the organiser
Ben Roberts b.l.roberts at sussex.ac.uk

-- 
Dr Ben Roberts
Lecturer in Digital Humanities (Digital Media / Computational Culture)
Sussex Humanities Lab