[Commlist] CFP: Researching Social Media After the API

Researching Social Media After the API: A One-Day Workshop
University of Liverpool (and online)

Wednesday 19th June 2024 (exact times to be confirmed!)

Deadline for submission: Friday 24th May 2024

In the recent past, social media platforms became more open about 
working alongside academic researchers and crucially, enabling academic 
access to their data in order to facilitate political communication 
research (and many other forms of research besides). However, this has 
been dramatically reversed in recent years in what Axel Bruns (2019) has 
referred to as the “APIcalyspe”. Both Meta and X (formerly Twitter) have 
withdrawn or sought to restrict access to their platforms for academic 
research by making it prohibitively expensive. The discipline now stands 
at a crossroads (Bruns, 2019). Either accept and adapt to the new access 
arrangements, most likely to the detriment of the scope, volume, and 
overall quality of the research, or consider methodological innovations 
and workarounds to examine these platforms central to our everyday 
existence. To this end, we would like to invite contributions to a 
one-day workshop to be held in hybrid format (online and in person, at 
the University of Liverpool), to discuss how we might continue to 
research social media platforms under these difficult conditions.

Potential topics could include (but are not restricted to):
-          researching the ‘black box’ (documenting and analysing 
communication on closed platforms such as WhatsApp/Discord/ etc.
-          The significance of small-N case studies
-          Researching dead or declining platforms
-          The ethics of collaborating with technology companies
-          Researching content moderation practices
-          Practical reflections on specific methods
-          Qualitative approaches

Please submit a 300-word abstract outlining the topic of your proposed 
contribution along with your name and contact information. Please also 
indicate if you would prefer to contribute online or in person. 
Abstracts addressing political research topics (broadly defined) will be 
prioritised. Abstracts and queries should be sent to Emily Harmer: 
(E.Harmer /at/ liverpool.ac.uk) <mailto:(E.Harmer /at/ liverpool.ac.uk)> by 24th May 2024.

The workshop is funded by DigiPol: Centre for Digital Politics, Media 
and Democracy at the University of Liverpool 
(https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/communication-and-media/research/digi-pol/ 
<https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/communication-and-media/research/digi-pol/>). 
We have a small pot of money to assist with travel costs to attend in 
person. Priority will be given to PGRs or unwaged/precariously employed 
colleagues. If you would like to be considered for a travel bursary, 
please indicate this in your submission so we can assess demand.

Organisers: James Dennis (University of Portsmouth), Emily Harmer 
(University of Liverpool), Liam McLoughlin (University of Liverpool), 
Paul Reilly (University of Glasgow) and Ros Southern (University of 
Liverpool).

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