CIM News Test
Workshop: Fake News in Digital Culture
Liliane Bounegru (Universities of Amsterdam and Ghent, Public Data Lab)
The 2016 US presidential election has brought social media and associated digital culture phenomena such as Internet memes and fake news under intense media and academic scrutiny. Concerns have been raised about the rapid distribution of this problematic content on social media and many technological, media literacy and fact-checking solutions have been proposed to curb these worrying dynamics. This workshop draws on insights, concepts and approaches from science and technology studies and Internet studies to examine current debates and research around misinformation and “fake news” and challenge some of the assumptions behind them. It argues that fake news is not just problematic content whose rapid spread needs to be curbed, but that this phenomenon encapsulates central aspects of our digital environments and thus it also provides a good opportunity to study their dynamics. More specifically it proposes to explore the publics, modes of circulation and tracking networks in which fake news is embedded as an opportunity to reflect on how digital platforms and the dynamics that they engender participate in the production of public (mis)information.
CIM welcomes IAS Residential Fellow Dr Andreas Birkbak
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CIM welcomes Dr Andreas Birkbak (Aalborg University, Copenhagen) as IAS Residental Fellow The Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies is delighted to welcome Dr Andreas Birkbak (Aalborg University (AAU), Copenhagen) as an IAS Residental Fellow during Summer Term 2018. Andreas Birkbak is an Assistant Professor in the Techno-Anthropology Group in the Department of Learning and Philosophy at AAU. His principal research interest is digital transformations of publics and the public sphere. He holds an MSc in Social Science of the Internet (University of Oxford), and an MSc and BSc in Sociology (University of Copenhagen), and was previously a visiting PhD scholar at the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation at Ecole des Mines and the médialab at Sciences Po. He recently published a book on digital methods with Anders Munk (2017) and research articles in Science as Culture, Computational Culture, Techné, and Design Issues. While at CIM, Andreas will collaborate with Noortje Marres and colleagues in the Public Data Labto research digital fact-checking methodologies. On May 9-10, they will run a data sprint event that will implement an experimental fact-checking protocol relying on search engine and social media data analysis. |
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Warwick/Heidelberg team win CDRC-GISRUK data challenge
A team including WISC PhD researchers Andra Sonea and Konstantin Klemmer and WISC professor Joao Porto De Albuquerque has won the CDRC Data Challenge, hosted at the GISRUK18 conference in Leicester. The team was awarded a prize of 500 £ for exposing the effect of immigration trends on the outcome of the Brexit referendum. The researchers from Warwick and the University of Heidelberg convinced the jury by expanding their scope towards an analysis of spatial heterogeneity in immigration patterns. Their findings suggest that not only the change of immigration over time affected the Brexit vote, but also its spatial structure.
Masters scholarships available
New for 2018/2019: Home/EU Bursaries/Scholarships for up to 40% of MSc/MA Courses
We are pleased to announce that for the 2018/2019 year, the size of our postgraduate course bursaries/scholarships for applicants possessing UK or EU citizenship has doubled to £4,000, with multiple bursaries available for the MSc in Urban Informatics and Analytics, the MA in Digital Media and Culture, and the MSc in Big Data and Digital Futures (with the Warwick Q-Step Centre).
To apply for bursaries for the MSc in Urban Informatics and Analytics or the MA in Digital Media and Culture, please see CIM’s funding and fees page. To apply for bursaries for the MSc in Big Data and Digital Futures, please see the 2018 Q-Step bursaries page.
You Have 20 Minutes
Presenting one’s research is an important part of professional development. How should one prepare for such challenges? What are good strategies for organizing one’s material? How to avoid common mistakes using PowerPoint, and how can one use such visual aids to improve one’s presentation? How to address the challenge of presenting rich research findings within a 20-minute constraint? What are good strategies for answering questions?
These and other questions will be addressed in this professional development seminar, led by David Stark (Columbia University and the University of Warwick). The seminar is targeted to younger faculty and is also open to PhD students. Participants in the seminar will have access to examples of successful presentations.
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David Stark is Professor of Social Science at Warwick’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies and also Professor of Sociology at Columbia where he directs the Center on Organizational Innovation. Stark has many publications in both Europe and the United States including articles in the American Sociological Review(1986, 1988) and theAmerican Journal of Sociology(1996, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015). His work has been cited more than 12,000 times. The recipient of numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has had continuous funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation since 2000. His current research is supported by a major five-year Advanced Career Award from the European Research Council. His CV, papers, and presentations are available at DavidStark. |
2 May 2018, 14:00 - 16:00
Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick
Room S0.18 (Social Sciences Building), All welcome.
CIM welcomes Prof. Carolin Gerlitz as Visiting Fellow
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Dr. Gerlitz is Professor of Digital Media and Methods at the University of Siegen and Co-Director of the Graduate School 'Locating Media'. Her visit to CIM is part of her research project "Numbering Life. Measures and Metrics in Digital Media”. This project is funded by the Dutch Council for Scientific Research (NWO) and explores the productive and performative capacities of social media metrics. It involves collaboration with Celia Lury on cultures of quantification and with Michael Dieter on app metrics. A second aim of the fellowship is to continue an ongoing collaboration with Noortje Marres, who is Mercator fellow of the University of Siegen-based collaborative research centre “Media of Cooperation”. Part of this collaboration includes the joint research project “YouTube as a Test Society”.
On Friday March 9th, Dr. Gerlitz will give a public lecture at the University of Warwick, entitled Fabricating “the people”: Automation and quantification in social media. The lecture will take place 10-11AM in B2.04/5 (Science Concourse). Please contact cim@warwick.ac.uk if you would like to attend. |
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Mixing it: Experiments in Digital Social Research
Research seminar organised by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (University of Warwick) as part of Out of Data.
Experiments are valued as sites and instruments of interdisciplinary collaboration between social, computational and creative disciplines today. This provides opportunities for methodological innovation, but also for mutual misunderstanding, as experimentation constitutes a different methodology and implies different sensibilities in different fields.
This workshop will examine the opportunities that digital research provides for experimentation between disciplines and fields. CIM has invited three speakers who have already contributed to this area of research and who come from different disciplinary backgrounds to present an examplar of experimental methodology which for them exemplifies the potential, efficacy or promise of experiments as a digital mode of inquiry. What constitutes a good experiment in digital research?
All are welcome, but places are limited, so please register to attend at cim@warwick.ac.uk. Born and Haworth's paper is available upon request from n.marres@warwick.ac.uk.
The workshop will take place on the 25th of April. Full information can be viewed here.
Assistant/ Associate Professor Post
Applications are invited for an Assistant/Associate Professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM).
Academic Technologist (maternity cover)
We are looking for an enthusiastic academic technologist to manage digital tools and data in support of teaching, learning and research in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, with a focus on supporting the use of digital methods by students and academics. This is a fixed term part-time post to cover maternity leave for 9 months.