Dear all, In case of interest, we have a public symposium with Richard Rogers (Chair in New Media & Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam and Director of Digital Methods Initiative) at King’s College London on “Repurposing social media for social research? Questions after the fake news debacle” coming up on this Thursday 31st May 2018, 5-6pm. There will be a talk with Richard, followed by questions and discussion with Cornelia Reyes Acosta, Alessandro Gandini and myself. See below and the following link for further details: http://repurposing-social-media.eventbrite.com/ Please feel free to share with friends and colleagues. All the best, Jonathan ## Repurposing social media for social research? Questions after the fake news debacle ## Thu 31 May 2018, 5-6pm ## Safra Lecture Theatre, King's Building, Strand Campus, King's College London ## Register: http://repurposing-social-media.eventbrite.com/ A symposium on the future of research with social media, with a public talk from Professor Richard Rogers, Chair in New Media & Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam, followed by questions and discussion with Cornelia Reyes Acosta, Alessandro Gandini and Jonathan Gray from the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London. Social media data as source for empirical studies have recently come under renewed scrutiny, given the widespread deletion of Russian disinformation pages by Facebook as well as the suspension of Alt Right accounts by Twitter. Missing data is one issue, compounded by the fact that the ‘archives’ (CrowdTangle for Facebook and Gnip for Twitter) are also owned by the companies. Previously questions revolved around the extent to which corporate data collected for one purpose (e.g., advertising) could be employed by social science for another (e.g., political engagement). Social media data also could be said to be far from ‘good data’, since the platforms not only change and introduce new data fields (‘reactions’ on Facebook), but also increasingly narrow what’s available to researchers for privacy reasons. How to approach social media data these days? The symposium is an opportunity to debate the future of research with social media. Bio: Richard Rogers holds the Chair in New Media & Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. He is Director of the Digital Methods Initiative, dedicated to the study of the ‘natively digital’ and online epistemologies. He is also the Academic Director of the Netherlands National Research School for Media Studies (RMeS). Among other works, Rogers is author of Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004), awarded the best book of the year by the American Society of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), and Digital Methods (MIT Press, 2013) awarded Outstanding Book of the Year from the International Communication Association (ICA). Rogers is a three-time Ford Fellow and has received research grants from the Soros Foundation, Open Society Institute, Mondriaan Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and Gates Foundation. -- Jonathan Gray | jonathangray.org<http://jonathangray.org/> | @jwyg<http://twitter.com/jwyg> Lecturer in Critical Infrastructure Studies Department of Digital Humanities King’s College London