ADVANCING SOCIAL MEDIA STUDIES @socialmediastudies - Tumblr Blog

Heidi Herzogenrath Amelung making an excellent case for drawing on philosophical perspectives in social media studies.

One of our new postdocs, Sam Merrill, introduces us to his exciting research on social media, social movements, cultural memory.

Arne Sjögren presents on his research about exploring whether multi-/inter-media events might create a hybrid form of narrative (bridging cinematic and live-performance experiences).

Thinking about possibilities and limitations of multi-screen (and possibly non-linear) presentations

Creative explorations on whiteboards #advsms

Critically assessing tools for social media research. Also: ethics discussion #advsms

#advsms Umeå meeting is happening! Digital Methods Workshop

Simon and David talking about the project!

The second group focused on the positive effects of creativity, empowerment and connection online. Despite being outnumbered by cyber-skeptics, we nonetheless created our own promising LEGO model of a social network. It represents several traits and trends that we focus on in our research: 1) it is a structured yet flexible space where users can form communities; they can be together, but not necessarily attached; 2) virtual networks are empowering - look at our giant giraffe who is the 'overuser' and has gained a lot of visibility online! The giraffe also symbolizes the open character of networks towards various identities, voices and styles. 3) You can spot a tower in the middle - there is a guy with the microphone on top of it. It can be a social media star, it can be a power holder, it can be a researcher. We like the idea of a researcher being able to detach him- or herself from social networks, look from above yet remain in the middle of it to get the best knowledge and observation. 4) Social media architecture has an array of spaces for all - there is a habitat for one-to-many crowds (look on the right, one preaching to many), or disperse discussions (Mikael's geggamoja-style users on the left!), or echo chambers (the temple on the left); there are ladders and multiple channels for interconnection between groups, which makes social media a fruitful space for various mobilisations.

All in all, social media are not all rosy, there is digital divide. We, as researchers, could contribute to overcoming this obstacle. The other meeting point for a possible collaboration is the study on how users appropriate designs and platforms offered by the developers, what purposes and habits influence their experience and choices. The third point is creativity as the empowerment tool. We were empowered by our LEGO model, and there is definitely a lot more we can do together.

#advsms

This is a Storify archive of day 2 of workshop 1: https://storify.com/simonlindgren/advsms-1

#advsms is rounding off the afternoon with watching Justin Lewis' film "Beyond Consumer Capitalism" followed by a Q&A hosted by Christian Fuchs

In one of the thematic groups, we discussed social media and critical theory in putting all of our individual models together into a common one (click the image for a larger version). Of course, there were power elites (‘the king’) and various resources, institutions and mechanisms (e.g. surveillance) of dominance. We also discussed the importance of not being blinded by social media content, but to keep focus also on the technological level. Citizens can connect through social networks to reproduce or resist ideological forces. Anxiously, off to the side, stands the researcher armed with theories, that might be more or less rigid.

There! It looks like we could agree on some sort of framework. Next step is to identify case studies and develop research collaboration ideas further.