ICA 2013: Big Data and Communication Research: Prospects, Perils, Alliances, and Impacts
Big Data and Communication Research: Prospects, Perils, Alliances, and Impacts Sponsor:
Communication and Technology
Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Tue, Jun 18 - 10:30am - 11:45am Building/Room: Hilton Metropole, York Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Big Data and Communication Research: Prospects, Perils, Alliances, and Impacts
Session Participants:
Chair: Eric Thomson Meyer (U of Oxford) Deconstructing Big Data: Database Ethnography, and Lessons Learned From Geocoding Wikipedia
Bernie Hogan (U of Oxford), Mark Graham (U of Oxford)
Wide Open or Locked Down? Platform Politics and Research Quality in Big Data Research
Cornelius Puschmann (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society)
Making Sense of Big Data: Developing a Social Science Research Agenda
Matthew Scott Weber (Rutgers U)
The Production of Big Data Knowledge
Danah Michele Boyd (Microsoft Research), Kate Crawford (U of New South Wales)
Big Data and Communications Research
Ralph Schroeder (U of Oxford), Eric Thomson Meyer (U of Oxford)
Abstract
Research using what has been referred to as big data is growing in the social sciences, and particularly in communication research. While early debates focused on still unresolved issues such as access to data, representativeness of samples, and privacy threats, the aim of this panel is to advance the discussion to the next level by asking the following questions: • What are the prospects and perils in big data communications research? How can big data research be integrated with or improve upon existing theories of interpersonal and mass communication? How can the embedding of new social media, where big data approaches are typically situated, within a wider media ecology be achieved, theoretically and in terms of findings? • How do researchers engage with researchers and tools from other disciplines and with the public outside of academia varies widely? For instance, to what extent are programming skills, or the ability to form close alliances with computer programmers, opening a divide among researchers? Also, what do big data researchers gain and lose from closer engagement with non-academics, such as when research questions are shaped by corporate agendas? • Now that a number of big data findings are available, what have scholars learned from these approaches? Is it possible to identify a shift in the direction of communications – and social science - research in terms of topics, with knock-on effects for the perception of the field? Have big data research methods mostly occupied certain niches, or are the effects being felt more widely? Should methods of big data research be broadened to include qualitative analyses, for example, of detailed content-analysis of tweets or interviewing Twitter users’ about their motivations? These three interrelated questions will be the focus of this panel consisting of specialists from a number of disciplines (geography, information science, sociology, communication) who will discuss these questions in the context of their work on specific research projects (Arab spring, Facebook, news and Twitter, and the like). The panel will encourage a wider debate with the range of researchers who attend the session to answer these and other emergent questions. The aim of the panel is to take stock, draw together experiences, and provide guidance towards how to support, strengthen and critically interrogate big data methods in communications research.