[ecrea] Digital Methods Winter School '16 Amsterdam - "Otherwise Engaged"

The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) will host its 8th annual Winter
School from 11th January to 15th January 2016 at the University of
Amsterdam, Netherlands. Below please find the call for participation.
The application deadline is 10th December.

This year’s theme is ‘Otherwise Engaged’, which 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.

For this edition keynote speakers will include Lilie Chouliaraki
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/WhosWho/AcademicStaff/LilieChouliaraki.aspx>, 

Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics
(LSE) and winner of the International Communication Association's 2015
Outstanding Book Award; as well as Phil Turner
<http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/c/people/peopleid/14>, Reader at the
Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation at Edinburgh Napier
University. There will also be a performance and reception for
Metahaven's <http://metahaven.net/>latest book Black Transparency
<http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1489&l=en&bookId=383&sort=year%20DESC,month%20DESC>.

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.

As of this year, the DMI Winter School is officially a part of the
University of Amsterdam Summer School
<http://www.uva.nl/en/education/other-programmes/summer-winter>programme
and there are opportunities for scholarships if your home university
belongs to LERU or/and U21 networks.

Feel free to forward the call to interested individuals.


*#### Otherwise Engaged.
#### Critical Analytics and the New Meanings of Engagement Online*

*Digital Methods Winter School 2016
*11-15 January 2016

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 Meanings of Engagement. The
format is that of a data sprint, with hands-on work on engagement
metrics for political, social and media research, together with a
programme of keynote speakers 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 DMI researchers and international
participants. Participants need not give a paper at the Mini-conference
to attend the Winter School. For a preview of what the event is like,
you can view short video clips from previous editions of the Summer
School in 2015 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nTxwl_kA5I> and 2014
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0BHzUefGqA>.

For this edition keynote speakers will include Lilie Chouliaraki
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/WhosWho/AcademicStaff/LilieChouliaraki.aspx>, 

Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics
(LSE) and winner of the International Communication Association's 2015
Outstanding Book Award; as well as Phil Turner
<http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/c/people/peopleid/14>, Reader at the
Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation at Edinburgh Napier
University. There will also be a performance and reception for
Metahaven's <http://metahaven.net/> latest book Black Transparency
<http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1489&l=en&bookId=383&sort=year%20DESC,month%20DESC>.

‘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.

*_Applications: 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. For those
taking the course for credits, see the official course catalogue entry
<http://studiegids.uva.nl/xmlpages/page/2015-2016-en/search-course/course/1132380>. 

Participants from LERU <http://www.leru.org/index.php/public/home/> as
well as U21 <http://www.universitas21.com/member> universities receive
atuition 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 <tel:%2B31%2020%20760%204000>
info-amsterdam [at] thestudenthotel.com <http://thestudenthotel.com/>

Arrival: 10 January 2016
Departure: 16 January 2016
EUR 290 (This is a new, specially discounted rate!)
The Student Hotel Amsterdam West website
<https://www.thestudenthotel.com/amsterdam-west>

If you would like to have accommodations at the Student Hotel, please
write to Simone Lorenz at simone.lorenz [at] thestudenthotel.com
<http://thestudenthotel.com/>. Please also inform the Winter School
organizers that you are staying at the Student Hotel 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 (DMI), Amsterdam, dedicated to developing methods for
Internet-related research. The Digital Methods Initiative holds the
annual Digital Methods Summer Schools
<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiSummerSchool> (nine to date),
which are intensive and full time, 2-week undertakings in the
Summertime. The 2016 Summer School will take place from 27th June to 8th
July 2016.

The /Digital Methods
<http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/digital-methods>/ book (MIT Press, 2013)
provides an introduction to the methodological outlook that frames and
informs the work of the DMI. This is accompanied by a companion volume
about mapping social and political issues with digital methods: /Issue
Mapping for an Ageing Europe
<http://en.aup.nl/books/9789089647160-issue-mapping-for-an-ageing-europe.html> 

/(Amsterdam University Press, 2015), which is also freely available on
the web <http://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=569806> as an
open access monograph. Further information and resources about digital
methods can be found at digitalmethods.net
<http://www.digitalmethods.net/> - including links to example projects
<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ProjectsByTheme>, publications
<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/PapersPublications> andtools
<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolDatabase> as well as an
introductory "founding narrative
<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/MoreIntro>" about the Digital
Methods Initiative and details about associated researchers
<https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiPeople>.

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.

*_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.


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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