Category: Projects

Hybrid Event: Digital Methods in Brazil

Posted on | by Janna Joceli Omena

[cross-post]

Call for Participation

This roundtable fosters dialogue about the current state of digital methods for Internet research in Brazil. We seek to celebrate emerging research practices and kick off a Global South network, situating them within a transitional methodological moment in which digital methods and methodologies have been built with, in and about AI, web platforms and data visualisation. This roundtable does not provide an exhaustive overview of digital methods in Brazil. Instead, it focuses on approaches specifically developed within the Brazilian context, offering unique perspectives on the field. đŸ‡§đŸ‡·

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🔗You are welcome to join the Digital Methods Global South Network by collaborating with us to map Digital Methods in Brazil (click here!) The results of this form will be displayed here and updated continuously đŸ€“.

Join us in person or online! âœšđŸ‘©đŸ»â€đŸ’»âŁïž

What Digital Methods are we talking about?

The digital methods we discuss are known as a means to repurpose the functioning of dominant web platforms, search engines and online data for social research. Also, considering the technicity of AI and computational medium, these methods invite researchers to (re) think and create new ways of designing and implementing research methods. Digital Methods have been used to advance social media research, media and OSINT studies, and digital investigation.

Digital methods are crucially situated in the technological environments they utilise and build on: the web environments, data, technologies and practices, and software for data curation, analysis and visualisation. In this sense, designing and implementing digital methods integrates i) the technical aspects of web environments, technologies, objects, and AI but also respects ii) online (sub) cultures of use while iii) actively and critically engaging with capturing, analysis and visualisation software in their own language. These pillars not only inform, (re)shape and add new layers of meaning to the object of study but also form the epistemological foundation of knowledge central to digital methods. 

A hybrid round-table at King’s College London

This hybrid round table will discuss the current status of digital methods research in Brazil and what one can understand as “methods” when advancing research with the web as a methodological landscape. Rather than defining an exhaustive landscape of the practice, it aims to open up discussions about the role of digital methods in humanities and social sciences and their broad societal impact from a Brazilian perspective. What are the emerging creative methods developed in Brazil that leverage the web, its technologies and data to address research questions starting online/offline? Which digital methods are being implemented, and what for? What are their relevance and broader implications for studying digital media and culture in the country? Who is developing digital methods and research software? How are Brazil’s gender and race-diverse perspectives advancing the field? 

In this celebrative encounter, panellists will discuss: a mapping of initiatives and labs across five Brazilian regions within this context, the convergences and possibilities of connecting digital methods with traditional (Digital) Media and Communication Studies schools, and the history of software development for digital methods research in Brazil and its challenges.

A quick-and-dirty Historical Context of Digital Methods in Brazil

⚠ Spoiler Alert: This is a simplified and brief overview rather than a comprehensive introduction to digital methods and their historical context in Brazil. 

In early 2011, three women started the first steps of digital methods in Brazil with the book “MĂ©todos de Pesquisa para Internet” (2011), published by Sulina in Porto Alegre, Brazilian South Region. Suely Fragoso, Raquel Recuero and Adriana Amaral introduce methodological approaches that account for the Internet as an object of research (the subject being studied), a research environment (the setting where research is conducted) and a research instrument (e.g., a tool for data collection on a specific topic). Examples are network visualisation using online data, hyperlinks and ethnographic analysis for internet studies. In 2012, Fernanda Bruno founded the MediaLab.UFRJ at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazilian Southeast Region. Based in the School of Communication, the lab focuses on techno-politics, subjectivities, and visibilities, using digital methods for data analysis and visualisation in the humanities. 

In 2013, in the “golden” era of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram APIs, research labs such as Labic in Espirito Santo advanced digital methods for social media research to monitor and study the 2013 protests in Brazil, also known as June Journeys. This series of nationwide demonstrations claimed to stop corruption and improve public services, among other grievances. The lab, constituted by a multidisciplinary team of coordinators, has significantly contributed to the growth of digital methods in Brazil by showing the impact and relevance of repurposing web data and technologies in a societal context. The book “A Comunicação das Coisas: Teoria Ator-Rede e Cibercultura” (2013) by AndrĂ© Lemos became an early influence on the methodological thinking that emphasises the agency of media and their mediations in shaping digital phenomena. Lemos’ research lab LAB404 (founded in 2006) at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Brazilian Northeast Region, and work, drawing from Science and Technology Studies (STS), while being characterised by a conceptual framework, his advocacy for addressing the technical affordances of media in communication studies laid foundational groundwork aligned with the principles of digital methods and their development in Brazil.

In 2016, the data journalism Coda.BR event in SĂŁo Paulo emerged to provide training for journalists, researchers, and data enthusiasts in Brazil, and it later became known as the Brazilian Conference on Data Journalism and Digital Methods. Everton Zanella Alvarenga, then-executive director of Open Knowledge Brazil, and journalists NatĂĄlia Mazotte and Marco TĂșlio Pires, were instrumental in implementing the project in Brazil. In the same year, the Brazilian Institute of Research and Data Analysis (IBPAD) and the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) played pivotal roles in advancing digital methods in Brazil. The former is by offering courses and publications covering techniques for monitoring and researching social media. The latter is through the Department of Public Policy Analysis (DAPP Lab), which developed methodologies to meet academic needs and produced reports to serve the public through multidisciplinary research. In 2017, the Advanced Studies Center on Digital Democracy (CEADD) of UFBA became the central laboratory of the National Institute of Science and Technology for Digital Democracy (INCT.DD). This initiative has focused on understanding how media and networks shape political and social phenomena, such as the rise of the far-right, misinformation, and electoral campaigns. 

In 2019, MĂ©todos Digitais: Teoria-PrĂĄtica-CrĂ­tica (2019), edited by Janna Joceli Omena, marks the launch of the first book in Portuguese on digital methods, gathering seminal and original texts authored by key Brazilians and International researchers in the field. The book addresses digital methods from a theoretical, practical, and critical perspective and has been adopted by several Brazilian universities to introduce these methods. Since 2019, research groups and labs have been established in the country, including the principles and practice of digital methods. For instance, the R-EST research group of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), under Carlos D’Andrea’s coordination, investigates how digital platforms mediate political and social interactions.

Programme

Opening 14:00 – 14:15

Welcome & What digital methods are we talking about?

Janna Joceli Omena (in person)

This opening statement unpacks digital methods from conceptual and practical perspectives. It will focus on how the practice of digital methods enables researchers to conduct digital fieldwork and gain a deeper understanding of their study topic through the lens of three distinct yet interconnected pillars: (i) platform grammatisation, (ii) online (sub)cultures of use, and (iii) the affordances and limitations of computational media necessary for implementing the method.

đŸ“ŁđŸ•žïžđŸ™‹đŸ»Please join this Miroboard (https://bit.ly/Metodos-Digitais-Brasil-Miroboard) to introduce yourself and ask questions throughout the talks.

đŸ“ŁđŸ‡§đŸ‡· đŸ‘©đŸ»â€đŸ’» You are welcome to contribute and be part of the Digital Methods Global South Network by filling out the form Mapeando MĂ©todos Digitais no Brasil.

15m Interventions 

14:15 – 14:30

Mapping research groups and labs developing digital methods across five Brazilian Regions: North, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast, South

Alan Angeluci (in person)

This presentation shares the findings of a bibliometric study that identifies Brazilian researchers and institutions from all five regions of the country who have published scientific works employing or focused on digital methods.

14:30  – 14:45

Digital Methods and Schools of (Digital) Media and Communication Studies: Convergencies and Possibilities in Brazil

Elias Bitencourt (online)

This talk briefly revisits key research schools and agendas within the field of media and communication studies in Brazil that have created favourable conditions for the emergence of initiatives focused on the research and development of digital methods in the country.

14:45 – 15:00

A brief history of software development for digital methods research in Brazil

Giulia Tucci (online)

This talk explores tools and methodologies developed in Brazil that are (or could be) used in digital methods research, highlighting innovative practices and localized contributions. Examining key projects and software initiatives showcases Brazil’s role in advancing digital research techniques and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.

Tea break

15:00 – 15:15

Discussant Commentary and Q&A Panellists

15:15 – 15:30

Critical commentary and insights 

Richard Rogers (in person)

15:30 – 15:40

Q&A Panelists 

📣You can join this Miroboard to ask questions đŸ™‹đŸżâ€â™€ïžđŸ™‹đŸ»đŸ™‹đŸœâ€â™‚ïž

Short link: https://bit.ly/Metodos-Digitais-Brasil-Miroboard 

Collective Discussion

15:40 – 16:15

Dialogue, Connection & Collective Discussion

Thais Lobo, Janna Joceli Omena (in person)

This moment fosters dialogue about the current state of digital methods for Internet research in Brazil. We will use a shared document to promote dialogue, networking, and the launch of a Global South network.

📣You can join this Miroboard to engage in collective discussion and networking ✹

Short link: https://bit.ly/Metodos-Digitais-Brasil-Miroboard 

Meet the Guest Speakers

Alan Angeluci

Alan is a Productivity Research Fellow (PQ-2) of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Senior Lecturer at the Department of Information and Culture, School of Communications and Arts, University of SĂŁo Paulo (ECA/USP), and at the Graduate Programs in Information Science and Communication Sciences (PPGCI and PPGCOM ECA/USP). Leader of the Smart Media and Users Research Group (SMU/CNPq) (smartmediausers.org). Conducted postdoctoral studies at ECA/USP and the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Holds a PhD from the Polytechnic School of USP, with a doctoral exchange period at the University of Brighton, England. Earned a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Architecture, Arts, Communication, and Design at SĂŁo Paulo State University (UNESP). Main areas of teaching, research, and outreach include Data Visualisation, Digital Methods, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Digital Culture, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Elias Bitencourt

Elias is an Associate Professor in the Design Undergraduate Program at the State University of Bahia (UNEB), with a Ph.D. in Communication from FACOM/UFBA and a Master’s in Culture and Society from IHAC/UFBA. Visiting researcher at the Milieux Institute in Canada in 2019. Lead of Datalab/Design (CNPq) at UNEB, a research and development lab dedicated to data visualization and digital methodologies. Research interests include data visualization, digital methods, platform studies, digital imaginaries, and the social impacts of algorithmic mediation. Background in Design, Applied Social Sciences, Information Science, Digital Humanities, STS, Digital Methods.

Giulia Tucci

Giulia Tucci has a Ph.D. in Information Sciences (2023) from the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT) and the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She has a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from COPPE/UFRJ (2011) and a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from PUC-Rio (2006). Since 2017, she has focused her studies on the information flow on digital platforms. Her doctoral research investigated the flow of information (and disinformation) on Telegram during the 2022 electoral campaign in Brazil. Her expertise spans computational social sciences, political studies, and digital methods. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher in a joint program between IBICT and UFRJ, as well as a visiting researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, contributing to the CGIAR FOCUS Climate Security program.

Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers is Professor of New Media and Digital Culture, Media Studies and Director of the Digital Methods Initiative, Humanities Labs, University of Amsterdam. He is author of Information Politics on the Web, Digital Methods (both MIT Press) as well as Doing Digital Methods (Sage). 

Meet the Moderators

Janna Joceli Omena

Janna is from Northeast Brazil, Pernambuco, Recife, and has a PhD in Digital Media from NOVA University Lisbon. She is the author of MĂ©todos Digitais: Teoria-PrĂĄtica-CrĂ­tica (2019), the first edited collection on digital methods in Portuguese, bringing together seminal and original texts. In Lisbon, Portugal, she founded the SMART Data Sprint (2016-2023), an initiative that provided a platform for teaching and developing digital methods, benefiting hundreds of participants and collaborators. She is a Digital Methods Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at King’s College London. Janna’s work focuses on understanding the epistemological dimensions of AI, web technologies, digital objects, and research software in designing and implementing methods and their role in research and knowledge production. Her research explores the practice and theory of digital methods, where she investigates the technicity of computational media from conceptual, technical, and empirical perspectives. She applies this knowledge to develop accessible and reproducible methodologies, supporting collaborations that build research software for analysing visual media content and online data.

Thais Lobo

Thais Lobo holds an MA in Digital Humanities from King’s College London and is currently engaged in ERC-funded research projects within the Departments of Digital Humanities and War Studies (Digisilk and Security Flows, respectively). As a media researcher and practitioner, she combines data analysis and research outreach to disseminate critical insights into digital platforms and online cultures. She has applied digital methods to explore social issues like health disinformation, political bots, greenwashing, climate change denial, datafication and digital surveillance in interdisciplinary projects collaborating with external organisations in the UK. Her experience includes roles in the media and research fields in Brazil.

Contact

Janna Joceli Omena, J.J.Omena@kcl.ac.uk

Thais Lobo, thais.matias@kcl.ac.uk

Acknowledgements

Janna Joceli Omena led the ideation of the event and authored this page, with contributions from Thais Lobo, Elias Bitencourt, Giulia Tucci and Alan Angelluci to the overall discussion and editorial work, bringing their experience on the Brazilian academic landscape. Bitencourt has also contributed to the section A Quick-and-Dirty Historical Context of Digital Methods in Brazil. Many thanks to Charlotte and Iryna for providing event logistics support, and special thanks to Jonathan Gray and Liliana Bounegru for their support in making this event possible.

Hybrid event for special issue on critical technical practice(s) in digital research, 10th July 2024

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

There will be a launch event for the Convergence special issue on critical technical practice(s) in digital research on Wednesday 10th July, 2-4pm (CEST). This will include an introduction to the special issue, brief presentations from several special issue contributors, followed by discussion about possibilities and next steps. You can register here.

New article on cross-platform bot studies published in special issue about visual methods

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

An article on “Quali-quanti visual methods and political bots: A cross-platform study of pro- & anti- bolsobots” has just been published in the special issue “Methods in Visual Politics and Protest” of the Journal of Digital Social Research, co-authored by Public Data Lab associates Janna Joceli Omena, Thais Lobo, Giulia Tucci, Elias Bitencourt, Emillie de Keulenaar, Francisco W. Kerche, Jason Chao, Marius Liedtke, Mengying Li, Maria Luiza Paschoal, and Ilya Lavrov.

The article provides methodological contributions for interpreting bot-associated image collections and textual content across Instagram, TikTok and Twitter/X, building on a series of data sprints conducted as part of the Public Data Lab “Profiling Bolsobot Networks” project.

The full text is available open access here. Further details and links can be found at the project page. Below is the abstract:

Computational social science research on automated social media accounts, colloquially dubbed “bots”, has tended to rely on binary verification methods to detect bot operations on social media. Typically focused on textual data from Twitter (now rebranded as “X”), these methods are prone to finding false positives and failing to understand the subtler ways in which bots operate over time and in particular contexts. This research paper brings methodological contributions to such studies, focusing on what it calls “bolsobots” in Brazilian social media. Named after former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the bolsobots refer to the extensive and skilful usage of partial or fully automated accounts by marketing teams, hackers, activists or campaign supporters. These accounts leverage organic online political culture to sway public opinion for or against policies, opposition figures, or Bolsonaro himself. Drawing on empirical case studies, this paper implements quali-quanti visual methods to operationalise specific techniques for interpreting bot-associated image collections and textual content across Instagram, TikTok and Twitter/X. To unveil the modus operandi of bolsobots, we map the networks of users they follow (“following networks”), explore the visual-textual content they post, and observe the strategies they deploy to adapt to platform content moderation. Such analyses tackle methodological challenges inherent in bot studies by employing three key strategies: 1) designing context-sensitive queries and curating datasets with platforms’ interfaces and search engines to mitigate the limitations of bot scoring detectors, 2) engaging qualitatively with data visualisations to understand the vernaculars of bots, and 3) adopting a non-binary analysis framework that contextualises bots within their socio-technical environments. By acknowledging the intricate interplay between bots, user and platform cultures, this paper contributes to method innovation on bot studies and emerging quali-quanti visual methods literature.

forestscapes listening lab at re:publica 23, Berlin, 5-7th June

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

As part of the forestscapes project we’re organising a listening lab at re:publica 23, the digital society festival in Berlin, 5-7th June 2023:

How can generative soundscape composition enable different perspectives on forests in an era of planetary crisis? The forestscapes listening lab explores how sound can serve as a medium for collective inquiry into forests as living cultural landscapes.

The soundscapes are composed with folders of sound from different sources, including field recordings from researchers, sound artists and forest practitioners, as well as online sounds from the web, social media and sound archives. They are composed using custom scripts with the open source supercollider software as well as open source norns device, a “sound machine for the exploration of time and space”.

The re:publica installation will include soundscapes from workshops in London and Berlin – including some new pieces from the Environmental Data, Media, and the Humanities hackathon last week.

Cross-posted from jonathangray.org.

Introducing forestscapes and open call for forest sounds

Posted on | by Jonathan Gray | 1 Comment on Introducing forestscapes and open call for forest sounds

Soundscapes as method

How can soundscapes be used as a way to attend to forest life and the many different ways that we narrate and relate to forests, forest issues and forest protection and restoration efforts?

Forests and their wider ecologies are presented not only as sites of conservation and relaxation, but also as crucial infrastructures in addressing and building resilience against the effects of climate change; habitats for endangered species; hotspots of biodiversity; part of poverty alleviation programmes; sites for ecotourism, health and wellbeing; scenes of neocolonial afforestation; backdrops for corporate greenwashing; landscapes of danger, violence, destruction and resource conflicts; and places where different kinds of planetary futures may emerge. Forests are involved in collective life in many ways.

In this context, the forestscapes project will explore, document and demonstrate generative arts-based methods for recomposing collections of sound materials to support “collective inquiry” into forests as living cultural landscapes. It aims to facilitate interdisciplinary exchanges between natural scientists, social scientists, arts and humanities researchers, artists and public-spirited organisations and institutions working on forest issues.

While many previous works have explored sound as a medium for sensory immersion, (e.g. field recordings), forestscapes explores how recomposing sound material may explore forests as mediatised and contested cultural landscapes: diverse sites of many different (and marginalised) kinds of beings, relations, histories and representations. As part of the project we will co-create new sound works, as well as generative composition techniques using open source software and hardware.

Research on visual methods has explored how to work with “folders of images”, including formats for the re-arrangement of images for collective interpretation. Forestscapes will explore generative methods and techniques for working with “folders of sound” – whether folders of site-based recordings or collections of sounds associated with a particular place gathered from the web and social media.

Further details and materials from the project will be added here.

Call for folders of forest sounds

As part of the project we have an open call for folders of forest sounds. If you have a collection of forest sounds related to a particular site and you’d be interested in exploring soundscaping techniques, we’d love to hear from you.

What? We welcome sounds collected in different contexts, i.e. research projects involving forests in some ways (e.g. ecological restoration, study of climate change impacts, fieldwork, etc); sounds recorded during walks and trips; as well as material collected online. 

How? You can tell us about your folders of forest sounds here.

Who? We’re keen to hear from everyone with collections of forest sounds –  whether you’re a forest scientist with bioacoustic recordings; an environmental organisation exploring sound as a medium of community engagement; a new media researcher gathering online materials; an ethnographer working with sound materials;  a musician working with field recordings from a particular forest site; an artist interested in generative compositional techniques with ecological sounds; or a walker who has gathered a collection of sounds from a forest you often go to.

When? Please submit your files by 17th March 2023.

The forestscapes project is a collaboration between the Department of Geography, the Department of Digital Humanities, the Centre for Digital Culture, the Centre for Attention Studies, the Digital Futures Institute and the Environmental Humanities Network at King’s College London, together with the Public Data Lab. It is supported by the National Environmental Research Council.

Exploring forest hashtags in COP27 Twitter with the European Forest Institute

Posted on | by Jonathan Gray

The following is a cross-post from Rina Tsubaki at the European Forest Institute, drawing on digital methods recipes and approaches developed with the Public Data Lab as part a broader collaboration around the SUPERB project on upscaling forest restoration.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has prompted confusion among its users and concerns about the platform’s future. Musk’s tweets are gathering daily attention due to large-scale layoffs and safety concerns around the new paid blue verification mark. To make things worse, as its engineers are on their way out of the door, users are also experiencing various technical glitches on the platform. Millions of users – including journalists, researchers and organisations – are already signing up on alternative platforms to be prepared for the platform’s deterioration and demise.

While no one can predict Twitter’s future, it remains widely used by politicians, scientists, companies, NGOs and influencers who are still busy posting on the platform. This includes COP27 in Egypt, where Twitter was one of the main platforms to report on the event. #cop27 has been tweeted over 2.85 million times since 5 November 2022. 

Social media platforms can give us additional insights into how broader publics make connections between forest restoration and other social, economic and environmental issues. To see which issues and narratives around forest restoration have been brought up on Twitter in the lead-up to the event, we’ve carried out a series of small explorations based on the digital methods recipes developed by our colleagues at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London and the Public Data Lab who are part of the SUPERB consortium led by EFI. This has been a good way to see if EFI could use these methods independently to understand international events as they unfold.

We usually see a spike in hashtag usage a few days before global events like the COPs. Using #cop27, we collected 217,189 tweets between 5 and 7 November 2022. We then examined the top 1000 hashtags to see which kinds of forest-related issues are present. 

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Article on “Engaged research-led teaching: composing collective inquiry with digital methods and data”

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

A new article on â€œEngaged research-led teaching: composing collective inquiry with digital methods and data” co-authored by Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Richard Rogers, Tommaso Venturini, Donato Ricci, Axel Meunier, Michele Mauri, Sabine Niederer, Natalia SĂĄnchez-QuerubĂ­n, Marc Tuters, Lucy Kimbell and Anders Kristian Munk has just been published in Digital Culture & Education.

The article is available here, and the abstract is as follows:

This article examines the organisation of collaborative digital methods and data projects in the context of engaged research-led teaching in the humanities. Drawing on interviews, field notes, projects and practices from across eight research groups associated with the Public Data Lab (publicdatalab.org), it provides considerations for those interested in undertaking such projects, organised around four areas: composing (1) problems and questions; (2) collectives of inquiry; (3) learning devices and infrastructures; and (4) vernacular, boundary and experimental outputs. Informed by constructivist approaches to learning and pragmatist approaches to collective inquiry, these considerations aim to support teaching and learning through digital projects which surface and reflect on the questions, problems, formats, data, methods, materials and means through which they are produced.

Profiling Bolsobot Networks

Posted on | by Janna Joceli Omena | 2 Comments on Profiling Bolsobot Networks

Blog post by By Emillie de Keulenaar, Francisco Kerche, Giulia Tucci, Janna Joceli Omena and Thais Lobo [alphabetical order].

Brazilian political bots have been active since 2014 to influence elections through the creation and maintenance of fake profiles across social media platforms. In 2017, bots’ influence and forms of interference gained a new status with the emergence of “bot factories” acting in support of Jair Bolsonaro’s election and presidency. What we call bolsobots are inauthentic social media accounts created to consistently support Bolsonaro’s political agenda over the years, namely Bolsonaro as a political candidate, President, and avatar of a conservative and militaristic vision of Brazilian history, where social discipline, Christian values and a strong but economically liberal state aim to uproot the decadent influence of “socialism” (Messenberg, 2019). From viralising or spreading hashtags to establishing target audiences with pro-Bolsonaro “slogan accounts” with a strong, visual presence, these bots have also been tied to documented disinformation campaigns  (Lobo & Carvalho, 2018; MilitĂŁo & Rebello, 2019; Santini, Salles, & Tucci, 2021). Despite the efforts of social media platforms, including Whatsapp and Telegram, to restrict their more or less coordinated inauthentic activities (Euronews, 2021), bolsobots still exist and actively adapt to online cultures.

Accounting for the upcoming Brazilian 2022 elections, the project Profiling Bolsobots Networks investigates the practices of pro- and anti- Bolsonaro bots across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. It aims to empirically demonstrate how to capture the operation of bolsobot networks; the types of accounts that constitute bot ecologies; how (differently) bots behave and promote content; how bolsobots change over time and across platforms, pending to different cultures of authenticity; and, finally, how platform moderation policies may impact their activities over time. In doing so, the project will produce a series of research reports on “bolsobot” networks and digital methods recipes to further the understanding of bots’ presence and influence in the communication ecosystem. 

We are (so far) a group of six scholars collaborating on this project: Janna Joceli Omena (Public Data Lab / iNOVA Media Lab / University of Warwick), Thais Lobo (Public Data Lab / King’s College London), Francisco Kerche (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), Giulia Tucci (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), Emillie de Keulenaar (OILab / University of Groningen) and Elias Bitencourt (Universidade do Estado da Bahia). Below are some of the preliminary outputs of the project.

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“Ways of Listening to Forests” workshop at Critical Zones exhibition, ZKM, 26th November 2021

Posted on | by Jonathan Gray

There will be a free online workshop on 26th November 2021 featuring our forest listening project as part of the Critical Zones exhibition curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel at the ZKM Center for Art and Media. This builds on a previous workshop in the summer. The sound pieces are now online as part of the Critical Zones exhibition and can be downloaded from the project website.

This piece is cross-posted from jonathangray.org.

Investigating infodemic – researchers, students and journalists work together to explore the online circulation of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracies

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

Over the past year researchers and students at institutions associated with the Public Data Lab have contributed to a series of collaborative digital investigations into the online circulation of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracies.

Researchers and students contributed to a series of “engaged research led teaching” projects developed with journalists, media organisations and non-governmental organisations around the world.

These were undertaken in association with the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project Infodemic: Combatting COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories, which explores how digital methods grounded in social and cultural research may facilitate understanding of WHO has described as an “infodemic” of misleading, fabricated, conspiratorial and other problematic material related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These projects led to and contributed to a number of stories, investigations and publications including:

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