Tag: Network Visualisations

Network exploration on the web: an interview with Gephi Lite

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

Following the recent release of Gephi Lite, an open-source web-based visual network exploration tool, we interviewed its developers about the background of the project, what they’ve done and future plans…

What is Gephi Lite?

Gephi Lite can actually be defined in two ways. The first definition follows the name we chose: Gephi Lite is a lighter version of the Gephi desktop software, targeting users who need to work on smaller networks with less complex operations in mind.

The second definition is more focused on the technical context: Gephi Lite is a serverless web application to drive visual network analysis. There are no more requirements than an internet connection and a modern web browser.

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New article: Staying with the trouble of networks

Posted on | by Jonathan Gray

A new article on “Staying with the trouble of networks” co-authored by Daniela van Geenen, Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Tommaso Venturini, Mathieu Jacomy and Axel Meunier has just been published in Frontiers in Big Data. It is available open access in html and PDF versions. Here’s the abstract:

Networks have risen to prominence as intellectual technologies and graphical representations, not only in science, but also in journalism, activism, policy, and online visual cultures. Inspired by approaches taking trouble as occasion to (re)consider and reflect on otherwise implicit knowledge practices, in this article we explore how problems with network practices can be taken as invitations to attend to the diverse settings and situations in which network graphs and maps are created and used in society. In doing so, we draw on cases from our research, engagement and teaching activities involving making networks, making sense of networks, making networks public, and making network tools. As a contribution to “critical data practice,” we conclude with some approaches for slowing down and caring for network practices and their associated troubles to elicit a richer picture of what is involved in making networks work as well as reconsidering their role in collective forms of inquiry.

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

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

A new article on “Engaged 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 Sánchez-Querubín, 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.

Make a deal with Gephisto

Posted on | by Public Data Lab

Mathieu Jacomy and Anders Munk, TANT Lab & Public Data Lab

6 minutes read

Make a deal with Gephisto

Gephisto is Gephi in one click. You give it network data, and it gives you a visualization. No settings. No skills needed. The dream! With a twist.

Gephisto produces visualizations such as the one above. It exists as a website, and you can just try it below. It includes test networks, you don’t even need one. Do it! Try it, and come back here. Then we talk about it.

https://jacomyma.github.io/gephisto/

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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; Militão & 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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New special issue of the bilingual journal Diseña on Visual Methods for Online Images

Posted on | by Gabriele Colombo

A new special issue of the bilingual journal Diseña has just been released. The issue, edited by Gabriele Colombo and Sabine Niederer, explores the realm of online images as a site for visual research and design.

While in an image-saturated society, methods for visual analysis gain urgency, this special issue explores visual ways to study online images. The proposition we make is to stay as close to the material as possible. How to approach the visual with the visual? What type of images may one design to make sense of, reshape, and reanimate online image collections? The special issue also touches upon the role that algorithmic tools, including machine vision, can play in such research efforts. Which kinds of collaborations between humans and machines can we envision to better grasp and critically interrogate the dynamics of today’s digital visual culture?

The articles (available both in English and in Spanish) touch on the diversity of formats and uses of online images, focusing on collection and visual interpretation methods. Other themes touched by this issue are image machine co-creation processes and their ethics, participatory actions for image production and analysis, and feminist approaches to digital visual work.

Further information about the issue can be found in our introduction. Following is the complete list of contributions (with links) and authors (some from the Public Data Lab).

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New website and blog for the Public Data Lab

Posted on | by Jonathan Gray | Leave a Comment on New website and blog for the Public Data Lab

Welcome to the revamped website and new blog for the Public Data Lab, courtesy of Andrea Benedetti at DensityDesign Lab in Milan. ✨

What’s new?

  • ? In order to enable more people to post more easily about various projects and activities, we’re now using WordPress as the backend for the site (along with static site templates and materials for use by different lab projects).
  • ??‍? We have added a people page so we can highlight a much wider group of people, groups and collaborators who we work with at the Public Data Lab.
  • ? We’ve added an updated projects page which includes more of what we’ve been up to than had been on the previous site, along with a little updating network diagram to show who has been working on what and the different clusters of our activities 🙂
  • ? We’ll be using the blog to post short notes and updates on our various projects and activities across the Public Data Lab and its associated research centres, communities and institutions.
  • ? We have lightly revised our mission statement to better reflect what we do (in light of activities over the past few years)

As always you can follow our activities on Twitter at @PublicDataLab and also get in touch if you’re interested in contributing to or collaborating with the lab.

If you spot anything that should be added/amended on the new website, please let us know or leave an issue on Github.