[ecrea] Call: Show Me Your Dashboard - Digital Methods Winter School 2015 - Univ. of Amsterdam

This is the second call for participation in the Digital Methods Winter 
School at the University of Amsterdam, 12-16 January 2015. The deadline 
for applications is 8 December 2014.

Together with Nathaniel Tkacz on dashboard critique (Univ Warwick) and 
Carolin Gerlitz on social media metrics (Univ Amsterdam), new speakers 
have confirmed from SumOfUs, UNICEF, TckTckTck, Climate Action Network 
and the Dutch design agency Clever Franke. We are also joined by the 
Density Design Lab, Milan.

SHOW ME YOUR DASHBOARD

New Media Monitoring and Data Analytics as Critical Practice

Digital Methods Winter School, Data Sprint and Mini-Conference


12-16 January 2015 | Digital Methods Winter School
Digital Methods Initiative | http://www.digitalmethods.net/
Media Studies | University of Amsterdam
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2015

The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI), Amsterdam, is pleased to announce 
its 7th annual Winter School, on New Media Monitoring and Data Analytics 
as Critical Practice. The format is that of a data sprint, with hands-on 
work on media monitoring with data analytics, and a Mini-conference, 
where PhD candidates, motivated scholars and advanced graduate students 
present short papers on digital methods and new media related topics, 
and receive feedback from the Amsterdam group of DMI researchers and 
international participants. Participants need not give a paper at the 
Mini-conference to attend the Winter School.

The focus of this year's Winter School is on how online media monitoring 
is currently done by non-governmental (NGOs) such as treealerts.org, and 
it seeks to identify practices that could fill in the notion of critical 
data analytics. For the occasion we have invited academics to present on 
the state of the art of online media monitoring by focusing on three 
areas where there is both innovation as well as repurposing of 
techniques normally associated with marketing, business intelligence and 
the work of digital agencies: issue discovery and language placement 
(who's carrying the conversation), engagement and public fund-raising 
(when do images and other engagement formats ‘work’?) and crisis 
communication (who is making the calls when there is a breakdown?). At 
the Winter School social media analysts and communications specialists 
from NGOs will present on the state of the art of media monitoring, 
their current analytical needs and what the Internet can continue to add 
with respect to new data sources as well as monitoring techniques. We 
will also ask each of the organizations to show us their dashboards.

The first day kicks off with Nathaniel Tkacz from the University of 
Warwick who will talk about Dashboards and Data Signals, and the desire 
to control the data deluge. The second keynote speaker is Carolin 
Gerlitz from the University of Amsterdam who will talk about new media 
metrics critique. Next a series of online media monitoring dashboards 
and methods will be presented. The Dutch design agency Clever Franke 
will show TrendViz. Soenke Lorenzen of Greenpeace International, Eoin 
Dubsky of SumOfUs, Dounia Kchiere of UNICEF, and Christian Teriete of 
TckTckTck will be talking about media monitoring at their respective 
organisations. Next will be project pitches by Ria Voorhaar of the 
Climate Action Network, Danie Stockmann of Leiden University, Jonathan 
Gray of the Open Knowledge Foundation and Alberto Abellan of Social Alto 
Analytics.


After the the first day of talks as well as dashboard show and tell, the 
data sprint commences, whereupon the attendees, including analysts, 
designers and programmers, undertake empirical projects that address the 
state of the art in NGO online media data analysis. We work on projects 
that seek to meet the current analytical needs. The week closes with 
presentations of the outcomes as well as a festive celebration. During 
the week there is also an evening of talks and a debate with Jimmy 
Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at the nearby Royal Netherlands Academy 
of Arts and Science.

The theme of the 2015 Winter School furthers the analytical 
collaboration between the Digital Methods Initiative and NGO media 
analysts, including Soenke Lorenzen of Greenpeace International. 
Previously workshop facilitators and collaborators have included 
representatives from Human Rights Watch, Association for Progressive 
Communications, Women on Waves, Carbon Trade Watch, Corporate 
Observatory Europe and Fair Phone. In preparation for the sprint we also 
have developed how-to worksheets on New Media Monitoring and Tooling 
that take as their case studies NGO issue mappings with digital methods. 
Upon conclusion we aim to compile the Sprint projects from the Winter 
School, and combine them with the how-to sheets to produce an open 
access publication on NGO media monitoring. All participants are invited 
to contribute.

Digital Methods Winter School Data Sprint

A data sprint is a workshop format for intensive, empirical project 
work, where analysts, programers, designers and subject matter experts 
collaborate to output research. This year's data sprint is devoted to 
new media monitoring with data analytics, and particularly its critical 
practice. Broadly speaking, media monitoring is understood as the 
process of reading, watching or listening to the editorial content of 
media sources on a continuing basis, and then identifying, analyzing and 
saving materials that contain specific themes, topics, keywords, names, 
forms or formats. Monitoring the editorial content of news sources 
including newspapers, magazines, trade journals, TV shows, radio 
programs and specific websites is by far the most common form of media 
monitoring, but most organizations increasingly monitor social media 
online, and its impact on the diffusion of news in all media or in 
online conversation (including the comment space) more generally. Most 
companies, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations utilize 
media monitoring as a tool to study the "meaning of mentions" of their 
organization, its campaigns and slogans, and gain some sense of the 
composition of their audiences, and what animates them (or keeps them 
quiet).

During the first day of the data sprint academics studying online media 
monitoring will present the state of the art of the field, focusing on 
three areas: issue discovery and issue language placement (who is the 
carrying the conversation, and which voices are continually elided?), 
engagement and fundraising communication (how are audiences and funders 
reacting to so-called 'faces of need' and other formats and calls for 
engagement?) and crisis communication (when there is a breakdown, who 
makes the calls?). Representatives from leading NGOs will present to the 
attendees how they practice online media monitoring, the look of their 
dashboards and the analytical needs that drive them. What are these 
experts able to accomplish with the techniques available to them, and 
which questions remain unanswered? What are the critical media 
monitoring practices and questions that are specific to NGOs? How to 
conceptualize and operationalize issue discovery, engagement for 
fundraising and crisis monitoring? We will ask the NGO communications 
experts to address these questions. We also will ask them what they 
think digital methods and issue mapping may add to the outputs of media 
monitoring.

The conversations with the experts will serve as starting points for 
winter school attendees - including analysts, designers and programmers 
- to develop into empirical projects that aim to answer research 
questions, and develop further techniques for media monitoring online.

Digital Methods Mini-Conference at the Winter School

The annual Digital Methods Mini-Conference at the Winter School, 
normally a one-day affair, provides the opportunity for digital methods 
and allied researchers to present short yet complete papers (5,000-7,500 
words) and serve as respondents, providing feedback. Often the work 
presented follows from previous Digital Methods Summer Schools. The 
mini-conference accepts papers in the general digital methods and allied 
areas: the hyperlink and other natively digital objects, the website as 
archived object, web historiographies, search engine critique, Google as 
globalizing machine, cross-spherical analysis and other approaches to 
comparative media studies, device cultures, national web studies, 
Wikipedia as cultural reference, the technicity of (networked) content, 
post-demographics, platform studies, crawling and scraping, graphing and 
clouding, and similar.

Key dates

The deadline for application is 8 December 2014. To apply please send 
along a letter of motivation as well as your CV to winterschool [at] 
digitalmethods.net, with DMI Winter School in the subject header. 
Notifications will be sent on 9 December. If you are participating in 
the Mini-conference the deadline for submission of paper titles, 
abstracts and bios is also 8 December, with DMI Mini-conference & Winter 
School in the subject header. Please send your materials to winterschool 
[at] digitalmethods.net?. To attend the Winter School, you need not 
participate in the Mini-conference. Deadline for submission of complete 
papers (5,000-7,500 words)?is 6 January 2015. The program and schedule 
are available on 7 January.

Fees & Logistics

The fee for the Digital Methods Winter School 2015 is EUR 295. Bank 
transfer information will be sent along with the notification on 9 
December 2014. The Winter School is self-catered. The venue is in the 
center of Amsterdam with abundant coffee houses and lunch places. 
Participants are expected to find their own housing (airbnb and other 
short-stay sites are helpful). During the week there is an evening at 
the Royal Academy with Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia. The Winter School 
closes on Friday with a festive event, after the final presentations. 
Here is a guide to the Amsterdam new media scene. For further questions, 
please contact the organizers, Liliana Bounegru, Natalia Sanchez and 
Saskia Kok, at (winterschool /at/ digitalmethods.net).

About DMI

The Digital Methods Winter School is part of the Digital Methods 
Initiative, Amsterdam, dedicated to reworking method for 
Internet-related research. The Digital Methods Initiative holds the 
annual Digital Methods Summer Schools (eight to date), which are 
intensive and full time 2-week undertakings in the Summertime. The 2015 
Summer School will take place 29 June - 10 July 2015. The coordinators 
of the Digital Methods Initiative are Sabine Niederer and Esther 
Weltevrede (PhD candidates in New Media & Digital Culture, University of 
Amsterdam), and the director is Richard Rogers, Professor of New Media & 
Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam. Liliana Bounegru is the 
managing director. Digital methods are online at 
http://www.digitalmethods.net/. The DMI about page includes a 
substantive introduction, and also a list of Digital Methods people, 
with bios. DMI holds occasional Autumn and Spring workshops, such as 
recent ones on mapping climate change and vulnerability indexes as well 
as on studying right-wing extremism and populism online. There is also a 
Digital Methods book (MIT Press, 2013), papers and articles by DMI 
researchers as well as Digital Methods tools.

See you in the winter time in Amsterdam!





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