[Commlist] CfA: Digital Methods in Action: Use, Challenges and Prospects

* CfA: Digital Methods in Action: Use, Challenges and Prospects

* 1st International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods” 
(SMUS Conference) and “1st RC33 Regional Conference – Africa: Botswana” 
in cooperation with ESA RN21 “Quantitative Methods” 23 – 26.09.2021

We hereby invite you to submit an abstract for the session “Digital 
Methods in Action: Use, Challenges and Prospects”, organized by Gabriel 
Faimau and Jannis Hergesell (Botswana and Germany) at the 
Online-Conference “1st International and Interdisciplinary Conference on 
Spatial Methods” (SMUS Conference) and “1st RC33 Regional Conference – 
Africa: Botswana” in cooperation with ESA RN21 “Quantitative Methods” 23 
– 26.09.2021, organised and hosted online by the University of Botswana, 
Gaborone, Botswana. This is an interdisciplinary conference; 
Communication and Media Studies scholars are welcome. There will be no 
registration fees to participate in the conference and no payment from 
the authors will be required. The deadline for submission of abstracts 
is 31.05.2021. Please find below details on the session, the conference 
and the submission process.

Session “Digital Methods in Action: Use, Challenges and Prospects
Session Organizers: Gabriel Faimau and Jannis Hergesell (Botswana and 
Germany)

The emergence of digital methods has presented various ways of studying 
and understanding digital phenomena in general as well as online and 
internet-related research in particular. This includes studies of online 
archived objects, online spatial analysis, social media and social 
networking, online network mapping, and various online social, 
political, economic and cultural references. Internet and online 
environment researchers have lately focused on addressing the following 
issues: How digital methods provide tools to respond to the challenge of 
Big Data on the one hand and how digital methods provide a base for what 
scholars call “online groundedness” in order to examine various 
socio-political change and cultural conditions shaped by online dynamics 
and constellations on the other? These digital methods widen the scope 
of researchers and change research practices and subjects fundamentally. 
However, this also raises "classical" questions of empirical social 
research: How are sampling strategies, data collection and 
methodological procedures changing? Do conventional quality criteria 
need to be adapted or supplemented? This session provides a unique 
platform to reflect on practical use of digital methods in various 
research fields including Communication and Media Studies and map out 
frameworks for exploring new possibilities for online social science 
research as well as encourage critical discussions on recent trends in 
the field of digital methods. We invite papers that address ways of 
doing and using digital methods, including but not limited to: Internet 
research and methodological innovation: Digital methods of social media 
research. Digital methods in studies of online political discourses and 
participation. Ethics and questions of digital research. Practical use 
and challenges of doing digital research and methods. Mixing methods in 
researching digital landscape. Insights from dealing with Big Data. 
Techniques and challenges of online data collection. Interdisciplinary 
cooperation between technical and social sciences on digital methods. 
Enhancement of "established" research designs by digital methods. Online 
participatory action research.

Submission of Abstracts
All sessions have to comply with the conference organization rules (see 
below). If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit your 
abstract via the official conference website: https://gcsmus.org until 
31.05.2021. You will be informed by 31.07.2021, if your proposed paper 
has been accepted for presentation at the conference. For further 
information, please see the conference website or contact the session 
organizers, Gabriel Faimau and Jannis Hergesell ((faimaug /at/ ub.bw); 
Jannis.hergesell@tu-berlin.de0.

About the Conference
The “Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability” (GCSMUS) 
together with the Research Committee on “Logic and Methodology in 
Sociology” (RC33) of the “International Sociology Association” (ISA) and 
the Research Network “Quantitative Methods” (RN21) of the European 
Sociology Association” (ESA) will organize a “1st International and 
Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods” (“SMUS Conference”) 
which will at the same time be the “1st RC33 Regional Conference – 
Africa: Botswana” from Thursday 23.09 – Sunday 26.09.2021, hosted by the 
University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana. This is an 
interdisciplinary conference; Communication and Media Studies scholars 
are welcome. Given the current challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 
conference will convene entirely online. The conference aims at 
promoting a global dialogue on methods and should attract methodologists 
from all over the world and all social and spatial sciences (e.g. area 
studies, architecture, communication studies, educational sciences, 
geography, historical sciences, humanities, landscape planning, 
philosophy, psychology, sociology, urban design, urban planning, traffic 
planning and environmental planning). Thus, the conference will enable 
scholars to get in contact with methodologists from various disciplines 
all over the world and to deepen discussions with researchers from 
various methodological angles. Scholars of all social and spatial 
sciences and other scholars who are interested in methodological 
discussions are invited to submit a paper to any sessions of the 
conference. All papers have to address a methodological problem.
Please find more information on the above institutions on the following 
websites:
‒“Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability” (GCSMUS):
https://gcsmus.org and www.mes.tu-berlin.de/spatialmethods
‒ISA RC33: http://rc33.org/
‒ESA RN21: 
www.europeansociology.org/research-networks/rn21-quantitative-methods
‒University of Botswana in Gaborone: www.ub.bw
If you are interested in getting further information on the conference 
and other GCSMUS activities, please subscribe to the GCSMUS newsletter 
by registering via the following website:
https://lists.tu-berlin.de/mailman/listinfo/mes-smusnews

Rules for Session Organization (According to GCSMUS Objectives and RC 33 
Statutes)
1.There will be no conference fees.
2.The conference language is English. All papers therefore need to be 
presented in English.
3.All sessions have to be international: Each session should have 
speakers from at least two countries (exceptions will need good reasons).
4.Each paper must contain a methodological problem (any area, 
qualitative or quantitative).
5.There will be several calls for abstracts via the GCSMUS, RC33 and 
RN21 Newsletters. To begin with, session organizers can prepare a call 
for abstracts on their own initiative, then at a different time, there 
will be a common call for abstracts, and session organizers can ask 
anybody to submit a paper.
6.GCSMUS, RC33 and RN21 members may distribute these calls via other 
channels. GCSMUS members and session organizers are expected to actively 
advertise their session in their respective scientific communities.
7.Speakers can only have one talk per session. This also applies for 
joint papers. It will not be possible for A and B to present at the same 
time one paper as B and A during the same session. This would just 
extend the time allocated to these speakers.
8.Session organizers may present a paper in their own session.
9.Sessions will have a length of 90 minutes with a maximum of 4 papers 
or a length of 120 minutes with a maximum of 6 papers. Session 
organizers can invite as many speakers as they like. The number of 
sessions depends on the number of papers submitted to each session. E.g. 
if 12 good papers are submitted to a session, there will be two sessions 
with a length of 90 minutes each with 6 papers in each session.
10.Papers may only be rejected for the conference if they do not present 
a methodological problem (as stated above), are not in English or are 
somehow considered by session organizers as not being appropriate or 
relevant for the conference. Session organizers may ask authors to 
revise and resubmit their paper so that it fits these requirements. If 
session organizers do not wish to consider a paper submitted to their 
session, they should inform the author and forward the paper to the 
local organizing team who will find a session where the paper fits for 
presentation.
11.Papers directly addressed to the conference organising committee (and 
those forwarded from session organizers) will be offered to other 
session organizers (after proofing for quality). The session organizers 
will have to decide on whether or not the paper can be included in their 
session(s). If the session organizers think that the paper does not fit 
into their session(s), the papers should be sent back to the conference 
organizing committee as soon as possible so that the committee can offer 
the papers to another session organizer.

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