[ecrea] Digital Methods Winter School 2016 - Call for Participation

  Otherwise Engaged.


  Analytics and the New Meanings of Engagement Online


  Digital Methods Winter School 2016
  11-15 January 2016


  https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2016


  Digital Methods Initiative
  University of Amsterdam
  Turfdraagsterpad 9
  1012 XT Amsterdam
  the Netherlands


    Digital Methods Winter School, Data Sprint and Mini-Conference


  The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI), Amsterdam, is holding its annual
  Winter School on Critical Analytics and the New Meanings of Engagement
  Online. The format is that of a data sprint, with hands-on work on
  engagement metrics in for political, social and media research,
  together with 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 DMI researchers and international participants.
  Participants need not give a paper at the Mini-conference to attend
  the Winter School.


  ‘Otherwise engaged’, the title of the Winter School, implies two
  projects. The first refers to the (interface) politics of attention
  whereby online services are variously vying to gain recognition
  through jumpy banners, push notifications and metrification, including
  those little red badge numbers on the iPhone that call for labouring
  and at least marking as read. The other sense refers to how engagement
  online is currently measured, and how it may be thought of differently
  and critically if one substitutes return visits and retention rates
  for forms of political engagement.


  Given the medium's power to distract and produce continuous partial
  attention, the term engagement appears oxymoronic when discussing
  online attention. However, “user engagement metrics” on the web, such
  as unique visitors, click-throughs, page views, duration and returns,
  have been joined by social media measures as likes, shares, comments,
  liked comments summed to indicate most engaged with content. In Google
  Analytics an entire vocabulary and set of measures exist to capture
  engagement. More conceptually the idea that content enlivens and
  animates, continually, has led to distinctions between liveness and
  liveliness, where the latter would be considered more meaningful
  engagement. Whilst there is thus the question of when there is only an
  appearance of engagement and when one is truly engaged, we are also
  interested in disengagement, and developing metrics for attention-less
  content, and that which makes one leave the scene.

  There is also the question of the relationship between engagement
  metrics and more established notions of political engagement. Is the
  online making one more of a remote observer than an on-the-ground
  actor, as political engagement theorist have discussed over and again
  in terms of slacktivism and clicktivism. Are there techniques to grasp
  content and activity that lead to apathy? The accompanying data sprint
  will seek to work with engagement metrics (and create others) to
  capture the meaning of activity, inquiring into when one is fully,
  multiply or otherwise engaged, with data from online media
  organisations (and selected new-form journalism) as well as
  campaigning by NGOs.


    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 10 December 2015. To apply please send
  along a letter of motivation, your CV (including postal address), a
  headshot photo, 100-word bio as well as a copy of your passport
  (details page only) to winterschool [at] digitalmethods.net
  <http://digitalmethods.net/>. Please indicate whether you would like
  to follow the Digital Methods Winter School for 6 ECTS credits, or the
  non-credits option. Notifications of acceptance will be sent on 11
  December. If you are participating in the mini-conference the deadline
  for submission of your paper is 5 January. The mini-conference takes
  place on Friday 15 January 2016. Please send your mini-conference
  paper to winterschool [at] digitalmethods.net
  <http://digitalmethods.net/>
. To attend the Winter School, you need
  not participate in the mini-conference. The full program and schedule
  of the Winter School and Mini-conference are available on 7 January 2016.


    Fees & Logistics


  The fee for the Digital Methods Winter School 2016 is EUR 595, or if
  you would like to receive 6 ECTS credits the fee is EUR 695. Bank
  transfer information will be sent along with the notification on 11
  December 2015.

  Students at the University of Amsterdam do not pay fees. Participants
  from LERU <http://www.leru.org/index.php/public/home/> as well as U21
  <http://www.universitas21.com/member> universities receive a tuition
  waver of EUR 500

<http://www.uva.nl/en/education/other-programmes/summer-winter/scholarships/scholarships.html#anker-scholarships-for-participants-from-leru-and-u21-partner-universities>.


  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), or we have available accommodations at the Student
  Hotel:

  The Student Hotel Amsterdam
  Jan van Galenstraat 335
  1061 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  Tel: +31 20 760 4000
  info-amsterdam [at] thestudenthotel.com <http://thestudenthotel.com>

  Arrival: 10 January 2016
  Departure: 16 January 2016
  EUR 440
  The Student Hotel Amsterdam West website
  <https://www.thestudenthotel.com/amsterdam-west>
  If you would like to have accommodations at the Student Hotel, please
  notify the organizers when applying on 10 December.

  The Winter School closes on Friday with a festive event, after the
  final presentations. Here is a guide to the Amsterdam new media scene
  <https://www.digitalmethods.net/MoM/NewMediaAmsterdam>. For further
  questions, please contact the organizers, Jonathan Gray and Natalia
  Sanchez at winterschool[at] digitalmethods.net
  <http://digitalmethods.net/>
.
  Please bring your laptop computer, your European plug as well as the
  VGA adaptor for connecting to the projector.


    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 (nine to date), which are
  intensive and full time, 2-week undertakings in the Summertime. The
  2016 Summer School will take place 27 June - 8 July 2016. 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
  <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiAbout> includes a substantive
  introduction <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/MoreIntro> (or
  founding narrative), and also a list of Digital Methods people
  <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiPeople>, with bios. DMI holds
  occasional Autumn and Spring workshops, such as ones on mapping
  climate change and vulnerability indexes
  <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ClimateConflicts> as well as on
  studying right-wing extremism and populism
  <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudy> online.
  There are also a Digital Methods book
  <http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/digital-methods> (MIT Press, 2013),
  papers and articles
  <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/PapersPublications> by DMI
  researchers as well as Digital Methods tools
  <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolDatabase>. Recently a
  complimentary Issue Mapping book

<http://en.aup.nl/books/9789089647160-issue-mapping-for-an-ageing-europe.html> 
was
  published.


    Social


  For those of you that use Twitter we are using the #DMI16 hashtag
  <https://twitter.com/search?q=DMI16> as the backchannel for
  communication. Some pictures from Winter School 2015
  <https://www.flickr.com/photos/130167703@N08>. Here is the Facebook
  Group <https://www.facebook.com/groups/DMIWinterSchool2015/> from last
  year's Winter School. Here are pictures from a variety of DMI Summer
  and Winter School
  <https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=digital%20methods> flickr streams.

  We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam in January.


Dr. Carolin Gerlitz
Assistant Professor in New Media
Program Director MA New Media & Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam

(c.gerlitz /at/ uva.nl) <mailto:(c.gerlitz /at/ uva.nl)>
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.gerlitz/


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