CIM News
What software do the BBC use?
We spoke to Christine Jeavans and the BBC data journalism team to find out more about how they use R, and other software, in their work.
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.
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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