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Call for Papers: ApPLIED workshop held in conjunction with ACM PODC 2018
by Announce Announcements 20 Apr '18

20 Apr '18

*** CALL FOR PAPERS *** ApPLIED: Advanced tools, programming languages, and PLatforms for Implementing and Evaluating algorithms for Distributed systems Workshop held in conjunction with PODC 2018 July 27th, 2018, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/lm/lm.php?tk=YWlyLUwJCQlhaXItTEBsaXN0c2Vydi… SCOPE Designers of advanced systems wishing to implement and evaluate distributed algorithms in practical settings are often faced with challenging questions regarding the transformation from design to a working prototype. For example, what language should they use? What communication library or tool should use to enable the communication between processes? Over which platform the algorithm should be implemented and evaluated? What tradeoffs must be taken into consideration, i.e., choose a low-cost (or free) publically available setting with moderate maintenance or an expensive, developer- friendly one? Context is also very important. Some design assumptions might not be feasible nor affordable to be implemented in practice, or certain considerations might be irrelevant. In other words, some important issues in theory, might not be important in practice whereas some practical obstacles deserve more attention and analysis. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together designers and practitioners of distributed systems from both academia and industry to share their point of views and experiences. We solicit submissions describing research results and/or position papers relevant to the topic of interest to ApPLIED. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * The process of designing an algorithm to developing a prototype implementation suitable for running on working systems. * Success stories in which the evaluation of (perhaps known) distributed algorithms resulted in further (analytical) insights. * Position papers that consider new directions, opinions and learned lessons. WORKSHOP SUBMISSION AND PRESENTATIONS Two formats will be considered: * A regular paper submission must report on original research that has not been previously or concurrently published; concurrent submissions to journals or conferences are not permitted. A regular submission must not exceed 6 pages excluding cover page and references. Additional necessary details may be included in an appendix which will be read at the discretion of the program committee. However, the paper must be self-contained without the appendices. Regular papers will have 30 minutes for an oral presentation at the workshop. * Short research statements aim at fostering discussion and collaboration. Research statements may summarize research published elsewhere or outline new emerging ideas. These submissions must not exceed 3 pages excluding cover page and references. The material in these short research statements may be published in other conferences. Short research statements will have 15 minutes for an oral presentation at the workshop. Submissions not conforming to these rules and papers outside of the scope of the conference will be rejected without consideration. The authors are responsible to have at least one of the authors registered to the workshop and presenting their work. PAPER SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Papers are to be submitted electronically through EasyChair: http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george/lm/lm.php?tk=YWlyLUwJCQlhaXItTEBsaXN0c2Vydi… Papers are to be submitted electronically, following the guidelines on the workshop web page. Submission must be in English, in pdf format, and in ACM proceedings style (ACM SIG). Each paper must begin with a cover page containing: (1) title, (2) author names and affiliations, (3) contact author's email, (4) abstract, and (5) indication of whether the paper should be considered as an article of original research, or short research statement. PUBLICATION The final version of the accepted papers will appear on the workshop's website and ACM digital library. These papers will be available to the participants in electronic format during the workshop. DATES * Full Papers Submission: May 13, 2018. * Acceptance Notification: June 4, 2018. * Camera Ready version: June 8, 2018. ORGANIZATION Program Committee Ittai Abraham, VMware Research, Israel Ioannis Chatzigiannakis, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy Chryssis Georgiou (TPC co-chair), University of Cyprus, Cyprus Seif Haridi, SICS, and KTH, Sweden Wolfgang John, Ericsson Research, Sweden Kostas Katrinis, IBM Research, Ireland Yanhong Annie Liu, Stony Brook University, USA Peter Musial, Intralinks, USA Nicolas Nicolaou, KIOS CoE, Cyprus Elad Michael Schiller (TPC co-chair), Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden Stefan Schmid, University of Vienna, Austria Mark R. Tuttle, Amazon, USA Roman Vitenberg, University of Oslo, Norway Marko Vukolic, IBM Research, Switzerland Organizing Committee Chryssis Georgiou, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Elad Michael Schiller, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

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LINIS data service for academics
by Olessia Koltsova 20 Apr '18

20 Apr '18

*Dear all,* Our Laboratory for Internet Studies (LINIS) is launching a collaborative service aimed at media & communication scholars from social science and humanities who may have great research ideas but cannot download or process the data they need. As a group of academics, we do not aim at becoming a for-profit data factory. Instead, we seek to offer the academic community such a division of labor that would help scholars get their research supported by data and ultimately published, and would simultaneously give us a chance to share and fully exploit our data-processing resources and skills that otherwise stay underused. *What are the challenges of big data collection & processing that we can help with?* · reformulate your research interest as a research task that can make use of the existing data “out there”; · reformulate this task in terms understandable by software developers; · connect to a developer who understands what a genuine academic research is; · download the data and store them in a database with a right structure; · make sure it has been done legally and ethically; · formulate what further manipulations with the data the developer should do to answer the final research question; · check the quality of the developer’s work; · provide related method advice. This may be a challenge even for those social scientists who do have experience with coding for small-scale data. LINIS has the experience in organizing full-cycle big data research including the listed procedures. *Right now we will support two major formats of resources & skills sharing:* · Data download and processing only: LINIS provides data for your research design without participating in publications and with LINIS expenses fully covered; · Collaborative work on both research design and data collection: LINIS shares expenses and participates in joint publications. More formats that would help bring together researchers with complementary skills may be supported in future if the pilot stage goes well. We will support only legal and ethical data collection and processing for academic research. We invite research groups, but above all individual researchers with modest research budgets to contact us via linis-spb(a)hse.ru <linis(a)hse.ru> . Olessia Koltsova Director, Laboratory for Internet Studies National Research University Higher School of Economics room 216, 55/2 Sedova St., 190008, St.Petersburg, Russia Phone: +7 (812) 560-00-55 www.linis.hse.ru E-mail: ekoltsova(a)hse.ru http://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/202747

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Job(s) at Cardiff University
by Andrea Calderaro 20 Apr '18

20 Apr '18

Dear all, We are making multiple appointments to join our Department of Politics and International Relations / Cardiff University. “Digital Technology in Government and Society” is one of the area the Department is keen to appoint colleagues, and the selected candidate(s) might have the opportunity to contribute to the research activities of the Centre for Internet and Global Politics. In particular, as described in the JobAd: “Digital Technology in Government and Society. We seek applicants whose research is developing insights at the cutting edge of this area, and whose teaching experience can help us equip our students with the skills necessary to engage with these developments. We encourage applicants who examine the challenges that digital technologies pose to government, society and global politics, in areas such as the politics of big data; digital research methods; digital communications; digital propaganda; artificial intelligence and machine learning; surveillance and privacy; Internet governance.” All posts are full time and permanent, and available from September 2018. Closing date: Monday, 14 May 2018 Full job ad available via: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BJB001/teaching-and-research-opportunities-in-pol… Feel free to drop me a line for informal queries. Best Andrea ----------------------------------------------- Andrea Calderaro, PhD Director Centre for Internet and Global Politics (CIGP) Lecturer in International Relations Department of Politics and International Relations | Cardiff University ----------------------------------------------- Personal page: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/330531-calderaro-andrea Twitter: @andreacalderaro

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Post Doc Position Supporting Political Social Media Analysis
by Jennifer Stromer-Galley 19 Apr '18

19 Apr '18

I am delighted to announce that my research team has a 1 year postdoctoral research fellowship to support the Illuminating project. Details of the position: This position is a grant sponsored, full-time position that should last for one year. We seek applicants from diverse backgrounds and women. The Center for Computational and Data Sciences at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies is looking for a postdoctoral research fellow to join the Illuminating 2018 project. Illuminating is a computational political communication project to collect, analyze, and inform the public about political candidate discourse on Facebook and Twitter. The project is led by Dr. Jennifer Stromer-Galley and Dr. Jeff Hemsley. It builds on the Illuminating 2016 project (http://illuminating.ischool.syr.edu) by collecting and analyzing the social media of candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and governors. The project will also prepare to collect for the U.S. presidential campaign that will get underway in the spring of 2019. We seek a colleague to join our interdisciplinary team for a one year Postdoctoral Research Fellow. The Fellow must have the following methodological knowledge: comfort with systematic content analysis, supervised machine learning techniques via python, and the R statistical package for multivariate statistical analyses. As well, the fellow must have interest and knowledge about political communication or American politics. The application review will begin May 1, 2018 and will close once filled. The start date is negotiable, but ideally on or around June 15, 2018. The position will be located in the Center for Computational and Data Sciences in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. To apply, visit https://www.sujobopps.com/postings/74400. ~Jenny Stromer-Galley AoIR Past President Director, Center for Computational and Data Sciences

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Ferments in the Field: The Past, Present and Future of Communication Studies
by Christian Fuchs 19 Apr '18

19 Apr '18

Ferments in the Field: The Past, Present and Future of Communication Studies (Special issue). Journal of Communication 68 (2): 219-451. Edited by Jack Qiu and Christian Fuchs https://academic.oup.com/joc/issue/68/2 Journal of Communication (JoC) published its special issue “Ferment in the Field” in 1983 (vol. 33, no. 3). Thirty-five years later there still is a great interest in discussing the origins, current state, and prospects of our field. This special issue titled "Ferments in the Field: The Past, Present and Future of Communication Studies" presents 20 articles, plus an introductory essay/reflection (by Fuchs/Qiu), with the intention to assess the field and provoke discussions about the status of communication studies. By proposing a new “Ferments in the Field” issue to JoC, our goal was to renew, repeat and update the spirit and critical discourses of the 1983 special issue. With contributions by: Christian Fuchs/Jack Qiu, Osei Appiah, W. Lance Bennett/Barbara Pfetsch, Paula Chakravartty et al., Miyase Christensen/Annika E. Nilsson, François Cooren, Robert T. Craig, Robert M. Entman/Nikki Usher, Cindy Gallois/Bernadette M. Watson/Howard Giles, Rosalind Gill/Akane Kanai, Natascha Just/Manuel Puppis, Marwan M. Kraidy, Sangeet Kumar/Radhika Parameswaran, Graham Murdock, W. Russell Neuman, Mary Beth Oliver et al., Colin Sparks, Slavko Splichal/Boris Mance, Joseph Turow/Nick Couldry, Nathan Walter/Michael J. Cody/Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, Herman Wasserman

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Snapchat's New Web-based Map: Data collection tools?
by Daniel Bateyko 18 Apr '18

18 Apr '18

Hi all, Personal research question that I'm not finding much on yet. I'm using Snapchat Maps, which are newly available on the web at https://map.snapchat.com/. Media organizations are using these maps to show real-time footage of breaking stories. I am interested in both documenting the snap stories and auditing Snapchat's map algos, which determine what stories are worthy of inclusion into a Heat Map. *What third-party tools are available for researchers who want to explore Snapchat's heatmaps?* For instance, I would like to script an alert any time a heatmap appears in a certain region and document the public stories. The embed feature allows for region selection, but heat-maps are not hyperlinkable. I've seen at least one similar question asked in the listserv concerning archiving snaps, but I'm particularly focused on the maps feature. If anyone is also interested in third-party tools or is currently working on Snapchat Maps data analysis, please get in touch! Best, Dan -- Dan Bateyko http://dbateyko.me/

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CfP: DATA, SECURITY, VALUES: VOCATIONS AND VISIONS OF DATA ANALYSIS
by Mareile Kaufmann 18 Apr '18

18 Apr '18

** Call for Papers - Please circulate widely** DATA, SECURITY, VALUES: VOCATIONS AND VISIONS OF DATA ANALYSIS 10.-11. December 2018 Peace Research Institute Oslo Data analysis is normative. Coding, programming and algorithmically interpreting data is always informed by the concepts, ideas, values and affordances of the technologies and people that engage with data. Even if the word data means "given", information becomes socially and politically imbued as soon as it is selected and categorized to make it available for analysis. Such insights are no longer only subject of academic critique, but the normativity of data analysis has by now become integrated into public discourses. In fact, the value of data has created a new market for moral entrepreneurs, who re-frame data analysis as a tool for moral engineering and security politics. At this conference we explore how values, ideas and concepts are not only necessarily embedded in data analysis, but also in what way they are productive and co-create society. Please join our discussion on the many vocations and visions of data analysis in the security domain: These can include overt media manipulation and disinformation, the active sensoring or removal of online contents, the workings of editing algorithms or retweet-robots, the promotion of state-sponsored narratives online, but also the normativity of approaches that seek to "uncover fake news", "fight attacks on the freedom of speech online" or "make the world a more secure place with online data". Together, we discuss the relationship between data analysis, ideas and values by looking at the workings of digital security technologies, data security policies or the security politics of data. The three confirmed keynote speakers are: Miguel Sicart, Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Game Research at IT University Copenhagen, "Playing Data: Understanding the Ludic in the Information Age" Katja de Vries, postdoctoral researcher in Law Science Technology & Society at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, "The coexistence of humans and algorithmic profiling machines" Susanne Krasmann, Professor at the Faculty of Economy and Social Sciences, (Criminology) Hamburg University, "The desire for truth - and the secret of algorithms" The conference will further include a roundtable discussion with representatives from the Norwegian Ministries on "Data & the everyday of security authorities" Please send your papers until the 21st of September to Mareile Kaufmann: markau(a)prio.no

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New Social Media and Democracy Research Facebook Group - AOIR
by Steven Clift 18 Apr '18

18 Apr '18

In recent weeks, you've probably heard <http://po.st/chronphilsocmedia> about Facebook's connection <http://po.st/zucksocmediademo> to an independent foundation funded <http://po.st/socdemknight> (multiple foundations <http://po.st/socdemhewlett>) effort to research the impact <http://po.st/socdemssrc> of social media on elections and democracy. That's great. There is even a related conference this week <http://po.st/socdemconference> with an amazing list of academic speakers. I am interested opening up digital channels of communication to help researchers hear from practitioners to help generate more actionable research related to social media and democracy. Whether you are a democracy/civic engagement practitioner, a political campaign operative, or an activist seeking to influence people or your government, what is happening *now* with social media and democracy that needs solid research? If you care about useful research, this group is for you. Perhaps you are within government having used social media to help win an election or you are in media looking for trends or digital options to boost journalism's role in the future of democracy, then this *off the record* group on social media and democracy research is for you too. (If you know practitioners active in the digital democracy/politics/media space who also care about the big picture as well as "winning" with the latest tactic or tool, please pass this invite along.) Researchers invited! This is about creating an effective digital feedback loop. I am interested in how researchers can more effectively engage and access digital practitioners across all the major sectors of democracy - government, media, campaigns and elections, advocacy and legislative bodies, and more. Since Facebook is the main target of a wave of research funding, let's build a digital bridge between research and practice that people actually use on that platform. So, if you do research in this space, please apply to join us. Once we reach 100 charter members, then we will switch to a member referral required to join process (which will be crucial to ensure participation versus free riding.) So, if you are interested in joining, you *must* answer the join request survey questions before your application will be approved: http://facebook.com/groups/socialmediademocracy Thanks, Steven Clift P.S. If you just prefer light reading and not participating actively, everyone is welcome to join my 7500+ member Civic Technology and Open Government Facebook Group. It is a very active group with daily posts: http://facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup Steven Clift - Executive Director, E-Democracy.org clift(a)e-democracy.org - +1 612 234 7072 http://twitter.com/democracy Join in: http://facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup Digital engagement for your org via E-Democracy: http://po.st/engageclift

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Upcoming public talks in London: data journalism (20 Apr); selfies (23 Apr); feminist AI (26 Apr); family as machine (2 May); data feminism (24 May); smartphone users in global south (30 May); Gephi field notes (19 June)
by Gray, Jonathan 18 Apr '18

18 Apr '18

For those of you in London, you might be interested in some of our upcoming events at King’s College London. A full and current list can be found here: http://kingsdh.eventbrite.com/<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fkingsdh.e…> * “Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt” (Chris Anderson, University of Leeds), Fri 20th April, 4pm: https://apostles-of-certainty.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapostles…> * “‘It’s not you, it’s me’: moral discourses and affective power of selfies” (Kat Tiidenberg, Tallinn University), Mon 23rd April, 5pm: https://selfies-book.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fselfies-…> * “Can a Data Set be Art? Creating Critical Design, new Data, and Feminist AI” (Caroline Sinders, Artist), Thu 26th April, 4pm: https://feminist-ai.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffeminist…> * “The Family as Machine: Cybernetic Kinship in Postwar America” (Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, King's College London), Wed 2nd May, 4pm: http://family-as-machine.eventbrite.com/<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffamily-as…> * “Data Feminism” (Lauren Klein, Georgia Tech), Thu 24 May, 4pm: https://data-feminism.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata-fem…> * “The World (Wide Web) through an App: The Challenges of Smartphone Users in the Global South” (Elisa Oreglia ), Wed 30th May, 4.30pm: https://smartphone-global-south.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsmartpho…> * “The Field Notes Plugin: Making Network Visualization in Gephi Accountable” (Karin van Es, Daniela van Geenen and Maranke Wieringa (Utrecht Data School, Utrecht University), Tue 19th June, 4pm: https://gephi-field-notes.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgephi-fi…> Abstracts copied below in chronological order. Please feel free to invite friends, colleagues and others. All events are public. ☺ All the best, Jonathan -- Jonathan Gray | jonathangray.org<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjonathang…> | @jwyg<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.c…> Lecturer in Critical Infrastructure Studies Department of Digital Humanities King’s College London ## Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt ## C.W. Anderson (University of Leeds) ## Fri 20 April 2018, 16:00 – 18:00 ## Register: https://apostles-of-certainty.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapostles…> This talk will trace the long history of quantified journalism in the United States, beginning in the early 20th century and taking us up to the present day. From this history, an argument is made that the general trend in journalism has been the increased comfort in asserting professional certainty when reporting the news. These trends are especially pronounced in today’s data-driven, digital media environment. The talk argues that journalism has learned the wrong lessons from science and that it needs, in an era of hyper-partisanship, to embrace a provisional uncertainty as both a normative and political strategy. C.W. Anderson is a Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, and the author or co-editor of four books: “Rebuilding the News” (Temple), “Remaking the News” (MIT), “The Sage Handbook of Digital Journalism” (Sage) and “Journalism: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford). “Apostles of Certainty: Data Joutnalism and the Politics of Doubt” is forthcoming in 2018 from Oxford University Press. ** ## "It’s not you, it’s me": moral discourses and affective power of selfies ## Kat Tiidenberg (Tallinn University) ## Mon 23 April 2018, 17:00 – 19:00 ## Register: https://selfies-book.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fselfies-…> Every day we share hundreds of millions of photos on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Many of these are selfies. Selfies are continually talked about, yet persistently attacked as unworthy of all of this attention. They generate far more engagement than most other social media content, but are claimed to lack artistic merit; indicate narcissism;  and lead to dangerously stupid behavior. This talk focuses on how selfies make us feel, and why they have the power to make us feel anything. It answers the question of “why selfies matter?” by unpacking the different cultural stories and social norms attached to selfies. It dismantles the exaggerated claims that all selfies are narcissistic, inauthentic, or low quality photography, or on the flipside, that all selfies are empowering. By analyzing how, why and when selfies make us feel “good” or “bad” a story of judgment and control emerges. Kat Tiidenberg, PhD is an Associate Professor of Social Media and Visual Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University, Estonia and a post-doctoral researcher at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is the author of the forthcoming "Selfies, why we love (and hate) them", as well as "Body and Soul on the Internet - making sense of social media" (in Estonian) published in 2017. Tiidenberg is a a long time member of the Association of Internet Researcher's Ethics Committee, a founding member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences, second time board member of the Estonian Sociology Association. She is currently writing and publishing on selfie culture, digital research ethics and visual research methods. Her research interests include visual self-presentation, sexuality, and normative ideologies as mediated through social media practices. More info at: kkatot.tumblr.com. ** ## Can a Data Set be Art? Creating Critical Design, new Data, and Feminist AI ## Caroline Sinders ## Thu 26 April 2018, 16:00-18:00 ## Register: https://feminist-ai.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffeminist…> Caroline Sinders is an artist and researcher exploring how new kinds of data sets, be it emotional data, traumatic data, or political data can then affect algorithms. How can these outputs be actualized as an art piece? Can the creation of a data set help create equity in digital spaces? Her work explores the intersections of critical design, data, and AI as art. Bio: Caroline Sinders (@carolinesinders) is a machine learning design researcher and artist. For the past few years, she has been focusing on the intersections of natural language processing, artificial intelligence, abuse, online harassment and politics in digital, conversational spaces.Caroline is a designer and researcher at the Wikimedia Foundation for the Anti-Harassment Tools Team, and a Creative Dissent fellow with YBCA. She has held fellowships with Eyebeam, the Studio for Creative Inquiry and the International Center of Photography. Her work has been featured at MoMA PS1, the Houston Center for Contemporary Art, Slate, Quartz, the Channels Biennale, as well as others. Caroline holds a masters from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. ** ## The Family as Machine: Cybernetic Kinship in Postwar America ## Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan (King's College London) ## Wed 2 May, 1600-1800 ## Register: http://family-as-machine.eventbrite.com/<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffamily-as…> How did the American family become a machine? Starting in the 1950s a community of progressive mental health therapists, ethnographers, and artists around the Bay Area put forth visions of the modern American family as a cybernetic machine. Researchers including anthropologist Gregory Bateson, filmmaker Weldon Kees, and psychiatrist Don Jackson proposed that family members encode and decode informational streams in feedback loops that promote the stability (or “homeostasis”) of the individual as well as the group. Mental illness, in this account, sprang from atypical coding patterns. This talk examines how technical affordances of mid-twentieth century “new media” such as experimental film and information theory facilitated this production of cybernetic families. It retraces the changing fortunes of the cybernetic family as an inspiration for leftwing antipsychiatric reform (e.g. Félix Guattari) as well as neoliberal mental health policies implemented in the Reagan era. These changes fit within a longer history of “media aesthetics” as a tool for managing aberrant selves from hysterics of the nineteenth-century to the quantified self of today. Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan is a media theorist and historian of technology. He holds an appointment as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of King’s College London and as a co-curator for the Technosphere Project at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin). His essays appear in journals including Critical Inquiry, Grey Room, and Theory, Culture & Society. He be found online at www.bernardg.com and on Twitter at @bernardionysius. ** ## Data Feminism ## Lauren Klein (Georgia Tech) ## Thu 24 May 2018, 16:00 – 18:00 ## URL: https://data-feminism.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata-fem…> With their ability to depict hundreds, thousands, and sometimes even millions of relationships at a single glance, visualizations of data can dazzle, inform, and persuade. It is precisely this power that makes it worth asking: "Visualization by whom? For whom? In whose interest? Informed by whose values?" These are some of the questions that emerge from what we call data feminism, a way of thinking about data and its visualization that is informed by the past several decades of feminist critical thought. Data feminism prompts questions about how, for instance, challenges to the male/female binary can also help challenge other binary and hierarchical classification systems. It encourages us to ask how the concept of invisible labor can help to expose the invisible forms of labor associated with data work. And it points to how an understanding of affective and embodied knowledge can help to expand the notion of what constitutes data and what does not. Using visualization as a starting point, this talk works backwards through the data-processing pipeline in order to show how a feminist approach to thinking about data not only exposes how power and privilege presently operate in visualization work, but also suggests how different design principles can help to mitigate inequality and work towards justice. Lauren Klein is an assistant professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, where she also directs the Digital Humanities Lab. With Matthew Gold, she edits Debates in the Digital Humanities (University of Minnesota Press), a hybrid print/digital publication stream that explores debates in the field as they emerge. Her literary monograph, Matters of Taste: Eating, Aesthetics, and the Early American Archive, is forthcoming from Minnesota in Spring 2019. She is also at work on two new projects: Data Feminism, co-authored with Catherine D’Ignazio, and under contract with MIT Press, which distills key lessons from feminist theory into a set of principles for the design and interpretation of data visualizations, and Data by Design, which provides an interactive history of data visualization from the eighteenth century to the present. ** ## The World (Wide Web) through an App: The Challenges of Smartphone Users in the Global South ## Elisa Oreglia ) ## Wed 30th May, 1630-1800 ## Register: https://smartphone-global-south.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsmartpho…> In recent years, small networks of traders have started to bring cheap, China-made smartphones to low- and middle-income consumers in the Global South. While this has made smartphones accessible to a population that would not be able to afford them otherwise, it has also brought a series of challenges due to the quality and features of the handsets, their language support, etc. Drawing from ethnographic research carried out in Myanmar since 2014, this talk will focus on the experiences of first-time Internet users in semi-urban and rural areas in Myanmar, and their challenges in accessing an internet that can look very different from the one we take for granted. I will discuss what it means to experience the Internet through apps, rather than through a browser; to use a mobile phone while constantly facing obstacles related to infrastructure, cost, connectivity, etc; and reflect on what lessons can be drawn for human-computer interaction and interface design for marginal populations. Elisa Oreglia is a lecturer in Global Digital Cultures in the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. Her research is about the diffusion, appropriation, and use of digital technologies among marginal communities in East and Southeast Asia. ** ## The Field Notes Plugin: Making Network Visualization in Gephi Accountable ## Karin van Es, Daniela van Geenen and Maranke Wieringa (Utrecht Data School, Utrecht University) ## Tue 19th June, 1600-1800 ## Register: https://gephi-field-notes.eventbrite.co.uk<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgephi-fi…> The network visualizations humanities scholars and social scientists employ to communicate research findings are often imbrued with a sense of objectivity. The impression is that these visualizations show facts about, rather than interpretations of, data. Gephi is a popular network visualization package, and used widely within scholarly research. Problematically, it saves only the spatialized network graph, whilst the steps taken and parameters of the algorithms used to get to make the visualization go undocumented. To garner legitimacy for scholarship, it is important that the interpretative decisions involved in the construction of the visualization are documented and opened up for scrutiny. Presently, academic publications in the field of media studies offer limited transparency on the matter. In this talk we explore Gephi’s “epistemological affordances” and elaborate on how the interpretative acts of practitioners, knowingly and unknowingly, privilege certain viewpoints and perpetuate particular power relations. We subsequently present the 'field notes' plugin for Gephi developed in collaboration with the Digital Humanities Lab. It enables account-ability through the systematic documentation of the visualization and analysis process. Karin van Es is Assistant Professor of Television and Digital Culture at Utrecht University (NL) and coordinator of the Datafied Society research platform. Recent publications include the edited volume The Datafied Society: Studying Culture through Data (Amsterdam University Press, 2017) with Mirko Tobias Schäfer and articles for various journals and essay collections. Karin’s current work focuses on how datafication enfolds within public service broadcasting. Daniela van Geenen is a lecturer in data journalistic research and data visualization at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and a researcher at Utrecht Data School. Her work tackles the question of the scholarly conduct that the work with digital methods demands, challenged by the need to design accountable software tools. Daniela published on the role of social and technical actors on social media platforms, and their meaning for social and political practices such as public debate and cultural consumption. Maranke Wieringa is a lecturer at Utrecht University and a researcher at Utrecht Data School. She has a background in Cultural Studies and Media Studies, and specialized in software and data analysis. Notable research to which she contributed focused on how politicians, and actors operating at the fringes of the public sphere frame, and use, news (media). Maranke’s current academic work focuses on (scholarly and municipal) accountability in data projects.

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Job: "Internet and Emerging Technologies Researcher" at Nesta (deadline 24/4!)
by Katja Bego 18 Apr '18

18 Apr '18

Hello all, I'm very excited to announce that Nesta (London) is hiring a researcher to come join us to work on the EU Engineroom project. This is a really exciting role for an early career researcher to become involved in shaping the European Commission's Next Generation Internet initiative, which seeks to build a more democratic, resilient and inclusive internet by 2025. You'd be helping out with setting the research agenda of the programme, with a particular focus on imaging different possible futures for the internet. You'd be working in a dynamic team working on a whole range of projects on topics like digital social innovation, AI regulation, decentralised data governance and data commons, fake news, digital democracy and technology foresight. A lot more detail about the role and application process here: https://www.nesta.org.uk/jobs/researcher-internet-and-emerging-technologies… Quick details: ** Deadline: **Tuesday, April 24 !!!* ** Job title: *Internet and Emerging Technologies Researcher ** Contract type: *1-year, but with possible extension. ** Location: *London, UK ** Hours: *Full-time (though can be discussed) ** Salary: *£28-34K ** Start date:* ASAP, but can be discussed. *The candidate:* You will have a relevant postgraduate degree in fields like STS and internet studies, economics, political science, law, computer science or data science. This role is quite dynamic, and can be adapted to the profile of the candidate (both quantitative and qualitative research backgrounds considered). Of course *feel free to share this opportunity with your students/recent graduates* as well if you think this opportunity might be of interest. Do get in touch if you have any questions! Katja *About Nesta: Nesta is a global innovation foundation. We back new ideas to tackle the big challenges of our time. Our mission is to spark and shape new ideas that improve how the world works for everyone. We use our knowledge, networks, funding and skills - working in partnership with others, including governments, businesses and charities. We are a UK charity but work all over the world, supported by a financial endowment. * -- Katja Bego | Data Science Researcher, Explorations team, Coordinator EU Engineroom -- 58 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y 0DS www.nesta.org.uk <http://www.nesta.org.uk/> | Newsletter <http://www.nesta.org.uk/newsletter_signup> | Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/nesta_uk> | LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1868227&goback=%2Egdr_1274367066783_1> | Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/NESTA/116788428355432?v=wall&ref=sgm> This email and any attachments are confidential and may be subject to legal privilege. Any use, copying or disclosure other than by the intended recipient is unauthorised. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately via +44 (0)20 7438 2500 or by email to information(a)nesta.org.uk <mailto:information@nesta.org.uk> and delete this message and any copies from your computer and network. The views expressed in this email are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Nesta. Nesta is a company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales with company number 7706036 and charity number 1144091. Registered as a charity in Scotland number SC042833. Registered office: 58 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DS.

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