Search (2 results, page 1 of 1)

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Abstract

In Digital Methods, Richard Rogers proposes a methodological outlook for social and cultural scholarly research on the Web that seeks to move Internet research beyond the study of online culture. It is not a toolkit for Internet research, or operating instructions for a software package; it deals with broader questions. How can we study social media to learn something about society rather than about social media use? How can hyperlinks reveal not just the value of a Web site but the politics of association? Rogers proposes repurposing Web-native techniques for research into cultural change and societal conditions. We can learn to reapply such "methods of the medium" as crawling and crowd sourcing, PageRank and similar algorithms, tag clouds and other visualizations; we can learn how they handle hits, likes, tags, date stamps, and other Web-native objects. By "thinking along" with devices and the objects they handle, digital research methods can follow the evolving methods of the medium. Rogers uses this new methodological outlook to examine the findings of inquiries into 9/11 search results, the recognition of climate change skeptics by climate-change-related Web sites, the events surrounding the Srebrenica massacre according to Dutch, Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian Wikipedias, presidential candidates' social media "friends," and the censorship of the Iranian Web. With Digital Methods, Rogers introduces a new vision and method for Internet research and at the same time applies them to the Web's objects of study, from tiny particles (hyperlinks) to large masses (social media).

Content

The end of the virtual : digital methods -- The link and the politics of Web space -- The website as archived object -- Googlization and the inculpable engine -- Search as research -- National Web studies -- Social media and post-demographics -- Wikipedia as cultural reference -- After cyberspace : big data, small data.

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Footnote

Rez. in: JASIST 58(2007) no.4, S.608-609 (K.D. Desouza): "Richard Rogers explores the distinctiveness of the World Wide Web as a politically contested space where information searchers may encounter multiple explanations of reality. Sources of information on the Web are in constant competition with each other for attention. The attention a source receives will determine its prominence, the ability to be a provider of leading information, and its inclusion in authoritative spaces. Rogers explores the politics behind evaluating sources that are collected and housed on authoritative spaces. Information politics on the Web can be looked at in terms of frontend or back-end politics. Front-end politics is concerned with whether sources on the Web pay attention to principles of inclusivity, fairness, and scope of representation in how information is presented, while back-end politics examines the logic behind how search engines or portals select and index information. Concerning front-end politics, Rogers questions the various versions of reality one can derive from examining information on the Web, especially when issues of information inclusivity and scope of representation are toiled with. In addition, Rogers is concerned with how back-end politics are being controlled by dominant forces of the market (i.e., the more an organization is willing to pay, the greater will be the site's visibility and prominence in authoritative spaces), regardless of whether the information presented on the site justifies such a placement. In the book, Rogers illustrates the issues involved in back-end and front-end politics (though heavily slanted on front-end politics) using vivid cases, all of which are derived from his own research. The main thrust is the exploration of how various "information instruments," defined as "a digital and analytical means of recording (capturing) and subsequently reading indications of states of defined information streams (p. 19)," help capture the politics of the Web. Rogers employs four specific instruments (Lay Decision Support System, Issue Barometer, Web Issue Index of Civil Society, and Election Issue Tracker), which are covered in detail in core chapters of the book (Chapter 2-Chapter 5). The book is comprised of six chapters, with Chapter 1 being the traditional introduction and Chapter 6 being a summary of the major concepts discussed.