262 research outputs found
Tweets Are Not Created Equal:investigating Twitter's client ecosystem
This article offers an investigation into the developer ecosystem of platforms drawing on the specific case of Twitter and explores how third-party clients enable different âways of beingâ on Twitter. It suggests that researchers need to consider digital data as traces of distributed accomplishments between platforms, users, interfaces, and developers. The argument follows three main steps: We discuss how Twitterâs bounded openness enables and structures distributed data production through grammatization of action. We then suggest ways to explore and qualify sources by drawing on a weeklong data set of nearly 32 million tweets, retrieved from Twitterâs 1% random sample. We explore how clients show considerable differences in tweet characteristics and degrees of automation, and outline methodological steps to deploy the source variable to further investigate the heterogeneous practices common metrics risk flattening into singular counts. We conclude by returning to the question about the measures of the medium, suggesting how they might be revisited in the context of increasingly distributed platform ecosystems, and how platform data challenge key ideas of digital methods research
Activated protein C ameliorates coagulopathy but does not influence outcome in lethal H1N1 influenza: a controlled laboratory study
Identification of the predominant glycosaminoglycan-attachment site in soluble recombinant human thrombomodulin: potential regulation of functionality by glycosyltransferase competition for serine474
Interface Methods: Renegotiating relations between digital social research, STS and sociology
This paper introduces a distinctive approach to methods development in digital social research called âinterface methods.â We begin by discussing various methodological confluences between digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology. Some authors have posited significant overlap between, on the one hand, sociological and STS concepts, and on the other hand, the ontologies of digital media. Others have emphasised the significant differences between prominent methods built into digital media and those of STS and sociology. This paper advocates a third approach, one that a) highlights the dynamism and relative under-determinacy of digital methods, and b) affirms that multiple methodological traditions intersect in digital devices and research. We argue that these two circumstances enable a distinctive approach to methodology in digital social research â thinking methods as âinterface methodsâ - and the paper contextualizes this approach in two different ways. First, we show how the proliferation of online data tools or âdigital analyticsâ opens up distinctive opportunities for critical and creative engagement with methods development at the intersection of sociology, STS and digital research. Second, we discuss a digital research project in which we investigated a specific âinterface methodâ, namely co-occurrence analysis. In this digital pilot study we implemented this method in a critical and creative way to analyse and visualise âissue dynamicsâ in the area of climate change on Twitter. We evaluate this project in the light of our principal objective, which was to test the possibilities for the modification of methods through experimental implementation and interfacing of various methodological traditions. To conclude, we discuss a major obstacle to the development of âinterface methodsâ: digital media are marked by particular quantitative dynamics that seem adverse to the methodological commitments of sociology and STS. To address this, we argue in favour of a methodological approach in digital social research that affirms its mal-adjustment to the research methods that are prevalent in the medium
Understanding Technology as Situated Practice: Everyday use of Voice User Interfaces Among Diverse Groups of Users in Urban India
Abstract: As smartphones have become ubiquitous across urban India, voice user interfaces (VUIs) are increasingly becoming part of diverse groups of usersâ daily experiences. These technologies are now generally accessible as a result of improvements in mobile Internet access, [-8.5pc]Biography is Required. Please provide. introduction of low-cost smartphones and the ongoing process of their localisation into Indian languages. However, when people engage with technologies in their everyday lives, they not only enact the material attributes of the artifact but also draw on their skills, social positions, prior experience and societal norms and expectations to make use of the artifact. Drawing on Orlikowskiâs analytical framework of âtechnologies-in-practiceâ we engage in an interview-based exploratory study among diverse groups of users in urban India to understand use of VUIs as situated practice. We identify three technologies-in-practice emerging through enactment of VUIs on usersâ smartphones: looking up, learning and leisure. We argue that â instead of asking why and how users appropriate VUIs â identifying different kinds of enactments of VUIs present researchers and practitioners with a more nuanced understanding of existing and potential use of VUIs across varied contexts
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