Parking on Twitter: Analysing situations in the extended street environment

Virtual Workshop

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies and Institute of Advanced Study
University of Warwick

Friday April 17 (10am-3pm) and Tuesday April 21 (2pm-4pm)

Organised by Dr Karol Kurnicki (CIM/IAS, University of Warwick)

Topic

The workshop is part of a research project about car parking in cities and aims to examine parking as a digitally mediated everyday situation. We will examine data from social media (Twitter) to explore whether and how they communicate real-life experiences of parking, what problems they bring to the surface, and what composes the mediated spaces of parking ("the extended street environment") on Twitter. Think, for instance, about the debate about hospital parking in the UK and its relation to the NHS underfunding and real estate market. We want to find out whether and how Twitter analysis can be repurposed to learn about these different situations in the infrastructural environment in society, and, in particular, whether situations can be identified by analysing the terms used on social media to draw attention to them. With the aid of tools of Twitter analysis, then, we wish to elicit from simple texts from the internet a range of emotions, communications and reactions that come from a very humble and widespread “parking problem”.

Format

This workshop is designed as a set of practical, hands-on exercises. By participating, you will gain experience in the use of social media methods for the social analysis of situations and learn how to critically interpret social media content. The workshop requires registration but is open to all – you do not need to have previous experience, but familiarity with social research, media studies, and mobilities studies will be beneficial. Introductions to methods and project, instructions and data for analysis will be provided.

The first session includes short presentations about the project and methodology, introduction to analysis and getting familiar with data and tools needed for the exercise. At this meeting we will also initiate work with datasets from Twitter, which is to continue in the time between meetings (individually and in groups). Assistance will be provided in this period via email. The second session is planned as a space to share the results between groups and discuss outcomes of the analyses and their potential for understanding of social practices in digital environment.

Registration

Attendance is free. To register please email kanishka.mathiarasan@warwick.ac.uk before April 8th.

In case of any questions get in touch with Karol Kurnicki (karol.kurnicki@warwick.ac.uk)