Ator-rede versus Análise de Redes versus Redes Digitais: falamos das mesmas redes?

Este artigo discute diferenças e afinidades entre três tipos de rede (Ator-Rede, Análise de Redes e Redes Digitais) importantes para o Digital STS.2 Nas últimas décadas, a colonização de pesquisas em STS foi lenta e gradual. Ela se inicia com a Teoria Ator-Rede (TAR), que oferece um conjunto de noções para descrever a construção de fenômenos sociotécnicos. Com o advento da Análise de Redes, estudiosos incorporam técnicas de investigação e visualização desenvolvidas pela Análise de Redes Sociais (ARS) e pela Cientometria aos estudos em STS. Com o crescente uso de recursos computacionais pelos STS, estudiosos atentam para as Redes Digitais como modo de rastrear a vida coletiva. Muitos pesquisadores tentaram relacionar esses três movimentos aos métodos digitais, ao apostarem que a TAR pode ser operacionalizada por meio da Análise de Redes, graças aos dados providos pelas Redes Digitais. No entanto, além da homonímia presente na palavra “rede”, que caracteriza as três abordagens mencionadas, há poucas evidências que comprovam a continuidade entre esses três tipos de rede. Falamos das mesmas redes

Choreographien der Existenz: Zur multimodalen Erweiterung biographischer Forschung und Lehre durch Verfahren der visuellen Analyse und Synthese

Das Studium von historischen Daten- und Textbeständen kann durch Techniken der Informationsvisualisierung multimodal erweitert und unterstützt werden. Biographische Datenbanken modellieren das Leben von historischen Akteuren als zeitlich strukturierte Verknüpfungen von Personen, Ereignissen, Orten, Organisationen, Objekten, Konzepten und anderer Entitäten. Methoden der Visualisierung wie Karten, Netzwerke, Treemaps oder Timelines können die Analyse und Exploration dieser komplexen Datensammlungen erleichtern und beschleunigen. Der spezifische Fokus des Textes richtet sich auf die Frage, wie Synergien durch die Kombination dieser Methoden erzielt werden können. Zu diesem Zweck wird das multiperspektivische PolyCube-Framework diskutiert, das die Gewinnung von biographischen big pictures ebenso begünstigt wie detaillierte Einsichten in die Lebenswege historischer Akteure

Genanvendt: Et kritisk tilbageblik på digitale metoders konsekvenser for kontroverskortlægningen

Digitale metoders centrale postulat er, at vi kan genanvende nettets medier til at sige noget om samfundet i øvrigt. Det gælder ikke mindst indenfor kontroverskortlægningen,hvor digitale medier er blevet væsentlige skuepladser for diskussioner om ny viden og teknologi. Begrebet genanvendelse synes at indebære, at en eksisterende metodisk og analytisk tradition finder nye måder at bruge nogle redskaber på. Vi kan således have en tendens til at spørge, hvordan kontroverskortlægningen har fundet nye anvendelser for værktøjer til eksempelvis mønstergenkendelse eller automatiseret tekstanalyse. I denne artikel argumenterer jeg for, at vi bør stille spørgsmålet om genanvendelse anderledes. Efter 15 år i tæt parløb med nettets indfødte medier og metoder kan vi konstatere, at det også er kontroverskortlægningen selv, der har forandret sig; at det i nogen grad også er den metodiske og analytiske tradition, der er blevet genanvendt til nye formål og i sine nye redskabers billede. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Anders Kristian Munk: Repurposed: a critical review of digital methods and their consequences for the cartography of controversies The central claim of digital methods is that we can repurpose online media to make claims about society more generally. This is not least the case in controversy mapping where digital media have become significant arenas for discussions about new knowledge and technology. The concept of repurposing seems to suggest that an existing methodological and analytical tradition is finding new ways of using a set of tools. We can thus have a tendency to ask how controversy mapping has found new applications for tools designed to do for example pattern recognition or automated text analysis. In this paper I argue that we should be approaching the question of repurposing from a different angle. After 15 years of close engagements with the native media and methods of the web it is evident that the practice of controversy mapping has also in itself changed; that it is also, to some extent, the methodological and analytical tradition that has been repurposed under the influence of its new tools. Keywords: Digital methods, ANT, STS, controversy mappin

Actor-Network VS Network Analysis VS Digital Networks: Are We Talking About the Same Networks?

International audienceTo appear as a chapter of the Digital STS Handbook (digitalsts.net) This paper discusses the differences and affinities among three types of networks (namely Actor-Networks, Social Networks and Digital Networks) that are playing an increasingly important role in digital STS. In the last few decades, the notion of networks has slowly but steadily struck root across broad strands of STS research. It started with the advent of actor-network theory, which provided a convenient instrument to describe the construction work of socio-technical phenomena. Then came network analysis, and scholars who imported into STS the techniques of investigation and visualization developed in the tradition of social network analysis and scientometrics. Finally, with the increasing 'computerization' of STS, scholars turned their attention to digital networks as a way of tracing collective life. Many researchers have more or less explicitly tried to link these three movements in one coherent set of digital methods, betting on the idea that actor-network theory can be operationalized through network analysis thanks to the data provided by digital networks. Yet, to be honest, the affinity between these three objects is sketchy at best. Besides the homonym 'network', there is little to is little to show for it. Are we sure that we are talking about the same thing? "Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." Catullus 85 or Carmina LXXXV Professor — you should not confuse the network that is drawn by the description and the network that is used to make the description. Student — …? Professor — But yes! Surely you'd agree that drawing with a pencil is not the same thing as drawing the shape of a pencil. It's the same with this ambiguous word, network. With Actor-Network you may describe something that doesn't at all look like a network — an individual state of mind, a piece of machinery, a fictional character; conversely, you may describe a network — subways, sewages, telephones — which is not all drawn in an 'Actor-Networky' way. You are simply confusing the object with the method. ANT is a method, and mostly a negative one at that; it says nothing about the shape of what is being described with it. Student — This is confusing! But my company executives, are they not forming a nice, revealing, significant network? Professor — Maybe yes, I mean, surely, yes— but so what? Student — Then, I can study them with Actor-Network-Theory

Discussion of Climate Change on Reddit: Polarized Discourse or Deliberative Debate?

This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this recordData availability statement: The data used in this study is from two publicly available datasets on bigquery: the fh-bigquery:reddit_posts project available at bigquery.cloud.google.com/dataset/fh-bigquery:reddit_posts, and the fh-bigquery:reddit_comments project available at: bigquery.cloud.google.com/dataset/fh-bigquery:reddit_comments. The data was accessed on 05/02/2019.Studies of climate discourse on social media platforms often find evidence of polarization, echo chambers, and misinformation. However, the literature’s overwhelming reliance on Twitter makes it difficult to understand whether these phenomena generalize across other social media platforms. Here we present the first study to examine climate change discourse on Reddit, a popular – yet understudied – locus for climate debate. This contributes to the literature through expansion of the empirical base for the study of online communication about climate change beyond Twitter. Additionally, platform architecture of Reddit differs from many social media platforms in several ways which might impact the quality of the climate debate. We investigate this through topic modeling, community detection, and analysis of sources of information on a large corpus of Reddit data from 2017. Evidence of polarization is found through the topics discussed and sources of information shared. Yet, while some communities are dominated by particular ideological viewpoints, others are more suggestive of deliberative debate. We find little evidence for the presence of polarized echo chambers in the network structure on Reddit. These findings challenge our understanding of social media discourse around climate change and suggest that platform architecture plays a key role in shaping climate debate online.University of ExeterLeverhulme TrustEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC

Uncertainty, Decision Science, and Policy Making: A Manifesto for a Research Agenda

The financial crisis of 2008 was unforeseen partly because the academic theories that underpin policy making do not sufficiently account for uncertainty and complexity or learned and evolved human capabilities for managing them. Mainstream theories of decision making tend to be strongly normative and based on wishfully unrealistic “idealized” modeling. In order to develop theories of actual decision making under uncertainty, we need new methodologies that account for how human (sentient) actors often manage uncertain situations “well enough.” Some possibly helpful methodologies, drawing on digital science, focus on the role of emotions in determining people’s choices; others examine how people construct narratives that enable them to act; still others combine qualitative with quantitative data

Understanding the effects of topic factors and threat exposure on motivation to participate in knowledge artefacts: The case of Wikipedia

Wikipedia’s unique feature that prompts voluntary knowledge creation makes it relevant for researchers to examine what motivates editors to contribute to the platform when there are no obvious compensations that they could receive in exchange of their efforts. Earlier studies have identified various encouraging factors of Wikipedia participation (e.g., fun, ideology, community aspect). In this dissertation, I undertook a psychology perspective and examined the issue with a focus on person-object-environment paradigm that has not been previously studied within the context of Wikipedia motivation. This paradigm explains the human behavior as a product of a person’s interest-oriented relationship with an object and with her/his environment. The aim of this dissertation was then to investigate motivation to work with Wikipedia (in terms of willingness to contribute to the articles and production of article measures) in relation to topic factors (object) and threat exposure (environment). Two laboratory and one Wikipedia textual analysis studies suggested that general (i.e., topic familiarity and controversiality) and specific characteristics (i.e., sentiment and psychological content) of a topic played significant roles in Wikipedia motivation. Specifically, working with familiar and controversial topics that had sociopolitical references increased engagement to Wikipedia articles. Results also suggested that Wikipedia community produced article measures (e.g., longer articles) related to content with both positive and negative sentiments. A closer examination on psychological content showed that affective (positive and negative emotion) and drive states (achievement, reward, power, affiliation and risk) were the best predictors of article production. With regards to threat exposure, although threat manipulations induced in the forms of mortality salience and uncertainty salience led to negative mood states, they did not result in any changes in people’s willingness to work with the articles. Overall, the findings suggest that Wikipedia motivation was significantly influenced by general familiar and controversial characteristics of the presented topic as well as positive/negative polarity and specific psychological orientations of the content. Threat-evoking environmental cues during Wikipedia use, on the other hand, did not seem to affect the motivation levels. These results support the human-oriented aspect of Wikipedia platform that is distinctively fostered by editors’ psychological, social and emotional interests

Why Map Issues? On Controversy Analysis as a Digital Method

This paper takes stock of recent efforts to implement controversy analysis as a digital method, in the study of science, technology and society (STS) and beyond, and outlines a distinctive approach to addressing a key challenge: the problem of digital bias. Digital media technologies exert significant influence on the enactment of controversy in online settings, and this risks to undermine the substantive focus of controversy analysis conducted by digital means. To address this problem, I propose a shift in thematic focus from controversy analysis to issue mapping. The paper begins by distinguishing between three broad frameworks that currently guide the development of controversy analysis as a digital method: demarcationist, discursive and empiricist. While each of these frameworks has been adopted in STS, I argue that the last one offers the best opportunities to further develop its distinctive approach to controversy analysis and address the problem of digital bias: this last framework allows us to digitally implement the “move beyond impartiality” in the study of knowledge, technology and society. To clarify how, I distinguish between two opposing solutions to the problem of digital bias in controversy analysis: a precautionary approach that seeks to render controversy independent from digital platforms, and an affirmative approach, which deploys specifically digital formats such as hyperlinks and hashtags to map controversies. Endorsing the latter approach, I argue that it needs to be developed further in order to secure the substantive focus of digital controversy analysis. We must broaden the scope of digital controversy analysis and examine not just controversies, but a broader range of issue formations, including public relations campaigns and activist mobilizations. I explore the practical implementation of this approach by discussing a pilot study in which we analyzed issues of Internet governance with the social media platform Twitter

Contropedia – the analysis and visualization of controversies in Wikipedia articles

Collaborative content creation inevitably reaches situations where different points of view lead to conflict. In Wikipedia, one of the most prominent examples of collaboration online, conflict is mediated by both policy and software, and conflicts often reflect larger societal debates. Contropedia is a platform for the analysis and visualization of such controversies in Wikipedia. Controversy metrics are extracted from activity streams generated by edits to, and discussions about, individual articles and groups of related articles. An article’s revision history and its corresponding discussion pages constitute two parallel streams of user interactions that, taken together, fully describe the process of the collaborative creation of an article. Our proposed platform, Contropedia, builds on state of the art techniques and extends current metrics for the analysis of both edit and discussion activity and visualizes these both as a layer on top of Wikipedia articles as well as a dashboard view presenting additional analytics. Furthermore, the combination of these two approaches allows for a deeper understanding of the substance, composition, actor alignment, trajectory and liveliness of controversies on Wikipedia. Our research aims to provide a better understanding of sociotechnical phenomena that take place on the web and to equip citizens with tools to fully deploy the complexity of controversies. Contropedia is useful for the general public as well as user groups with specific interests such as scientists, students, data journalists, decision makers and media communicators