[Commlist] Call for book chapter contributions for book: "In excess: data boundaries and overflow in digital media research"

Inspired by conversations about "excess in research" with colleagues at 
RMIT's Digital Ethnography Research Centre 
<https://digital-ethnography.com/>, Ingrid Richardson 
<https://www.rmit.edu.au/contact/staff-contacts/academic-staff/r/richardson-professor-ingrid> 
and I are working on an edited book collection that explores excess and 
would love to hear if you're interested in contributing a book chapter 
(~5000 words).


We welcome short abstracts of about 200-500 words that respond to our 
current blurb below - due by *Friday 27 August 2021. *

Please get in touch if you'd like to talk about your ideas as well. We 
will compile a book proposal from proposed chapter contributions and 
confirm a publisher as soon as possible.

Cheers

Natalie and Ingrid


*Proposed title:  In excess: data boundaries and overflow in digital 
media research*

*Editors: Natalie Hendry and Ingrid Richardson *

Excess emerges in the research process: the “debris” and “leftovers” 
from planning, fieldwork and writing; the words cut from drafts and 
copied to untouched and forgotten files; the data analyses never 
published. This may be inherent to research as we create boundaries on 
the world to manage or confine our research questions and interests. It 
may also be a problem of increasing academic pressures to publish and 
discard data that doesn’t neatly fit a project or topic, or perhaps it 
is an ethical problem as we actively or even unintentionally collect 
“too much” data. Much of the work we do, including the experience and 
affects of research, sits beyond the boundaries of academic books, 
journal articles and reports. Even as creative and innovative ways of 
doing and communicating research strive to better incorporate complex, 
experiential, and iterative approaches, such methods also face 
significant challenges in addressing the complexity and excess of 
scholarship.

Media, internet and technology researchers know the possibilities and 
problems of “excess” and “TMI”—too much information—intimately. While 
the challenge of excess and too much data is familiar to qualitative and 
quantitative scholars alike, it is especially critical for digital media 
researchers. Not only do the (unrealised) promises of big data to 
capture “everything” haunt our projects, our media interests and digital 
fields are expansive and perpetually being made and remade as content 
and data are retweeted, shared and circulated through devices, apps and 
platforms. Our research projects and sites may end, but our research 
histories continue to follow us on social media through algorithmic and 
archival functions.

For Clay Shirky (2008) this broader problem is “not information 
overload. It’s filter failure.” For researchers, is data excess merely a 
filter problem? How then do we imagine and enact filters and boundaries 
for research to manage material, theoretical and pragmatic overload? How 
can and do other researchers or projects embrace excess, even if only in 
the early brainstorming stages of project development? What 
opportunities might excess offer us?

This book is a dedicated collection that explores excess as a 
conceptual, methodological, ethical and pragmatic challenge and 
opportunity in media research. It examines what happens when media 
researchers return to their surplus knowledge, labour and feelings about 
data overflow.

We invite contributions from researchers and scholars to explore 
“excess” as it emerges in digital technology and media research. While 
not exhaustive, we offer these suggestions as starting points:

  * Theories of excess, overwhelm, attention, overload and “TMI” in
    relation to research methods
  * Research methodologies and methods that actively engage with excess,
    boundaries, and scope
  * Creative practice and innovative methods that engage with media
    excess and/or address problems or opportunities of excess in
    participants’ and communities’ lives
  * Theoretical, ethical, or methodological discussions of conceptual,
    material and/or digital boundaries in media studies research
  * Practical recommendations to support new and post graduate
    researchers manage the challenges of too much data
  * Processes and methods of knowledge translation and how they may
    simplify or modify complex, boundless or extravagant projects
  * Analyses of the breadth, depth, and scope of big data or large
    digital ethnography projects (among others)
  * Reflections on the “leftovers” and surplus in research
  * Metaphors and concepts of excess as a means of critiquing research
    processes and methods
  * Excess as an ethical challenge and the ethical implications of “too
    much” data
  * Affective experiences and approaches to “excessive feelings”
    including overwhelm, shame, confusion, and other intensities
  * Negotiating excess through and after project development with
    stakeholders, funders, institutions, and other bodies outside of
    academia




*Natalie Hendry (PhD)*
Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow
(natalie.hendry /at/ rmit.edu.au)
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