Ethnography, postdigital: Platforms, algorithms, and automation (original) (raw)

2021

Abstract

Over the past decade, the ubiquity of digital mediation in societies across the globe has been mirrored by sustained academic efforts in articulating “digital ethnography” – intended here as an umbrella term for qualitative participatory methods fine-tuned to study various aspects of digital media. As suggested by the proliferation of specialized approaches and epistemological perspectives, digital ethnography is here to stay. But at the same time, the very same pervasiveness of digital media in everyday life risks obscuring the challenge of keeping this methodology up to speed with sociotechnical change. Departing from the concept of the postdigital (“a term that sucks but is useful”, according to Florian Cramer and Petar Jandrić), this talk examines the viability of digital ethnographic methods for the study of topics of recent scholarly interest such as platforms, algorithms, and automation. What changes do platforms bring to digital ethnography’s idea of ‘field’? Can algorithms be interviewed? How does one follow automation?

Gabriele de Seta hasn't uploaded this talk.

Let Gabriele know you want this talk to be uploaded.

Ask for this talk to be uploaded.