More than Data: Positionality and Situatedness in Digital Media Research

Mixing Methods Summer School II

Siegen, 18 – 22 September 2023

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About

Situating and positioning oneself as a researcher has a long tradition in feminist and ethnographic methodologies, but how can we rethink the notion of positionality in digital media research, when engaging with media through their data? How can we contextualize the data we are working with and acknowledge our own position(s) as researchers? Which voices, perspectives, but also biases do collaborative methods and visualization practices bring about, and how can we reflect them? We suggest that accounting for positionality and situatedness are key aspects of the ethical implications of studying online environments through multimodal data—visual, textual, and numeric.

The one-week summer school organized by the Collaborative Research Center, “Media of Cooperation”, University of Siegen, invites graduate students and postdoc researchers interested in the intersections of digital methodologies, data feminism, (visual) social media, and platforms. Our main theme, “More Than Data: Positionality and Situatedness in Digital Research”, encourages conceptual and methodological discussions that challenge the narratives of ‘impartiality’ through experimentations with situated data analysis and visualization. The summer school is practice-based and brings together conceptual inputs, methodological trainings, and sprinted group projects. Through the integration of ethnographic investigations and digital methods, we explore diverse possibilities for reflection of what positionality means in relation to environments equally co-generated by human and non-human actors. We seek to capture the nuances of subjugated knowledge through context-sensitive approaches, providing a collaborative space for rethinking digitally mediated hierarchies, binaries, and biases.

Highlights

Participants had the opportunity to reflect on how different forms of positionality and embodiment can be made visible and critically re-imagined in the process of obtaining, visualizing, and interpreting online-ethnographic and visual platform data. A blend of research practice and critical reflection, the summer school featured

a keynote by Gabriele Colombo (DensityDesign/Politecnico di Milano): “Unfolding data: lists, catalogues, supercuts and other visual formats for digital research”
two project tracks intended to meet the needs of question-driven positional mapping and ethical data storytelling.

Track One: Mapping the Misappropriation of Images of Trans Bodies

with Aikaterini Mniestri

The track led by facilitator Aikaterini Mniestri will enable participants to access curated networks of trans content creators on YouTube through a platform-embedded understanding of online ethnographic data. We will collaboratively develop a situated mapping of text and visual data to understand the web of positionalities of human and non-human actors involved. This track will inform an understanding of how these actors are implicated in the appropriation of images of trans bodies outside of their original setting. Participants will learn

how to work with reverse image searching tools and image-based artificial intelligence to track images across the web
how to engage with misappropriated images to map out their ‘second life’ away from their creators
how to use this methodology in their own research with the help of a situational mapping template – designed as the core output of this project

This template will help participants identify human and non-human actants in the field. Additionally, it will help them explore ethnographic data from different perspectives, thus unveiling the precarity faced by LGBTQ+ creators. At the same time, this template will highlight the responsibility of the researcher to handle sensitive data with care and encourage a critique of institutional actors who distort the meaning behind images of gender transition and affirmation.

Track Two #letztegeneration meets #klimakleber: Mapping TikTok Imaginaries of Climate Activism and Climate Change Denial

Engaging with the social moving image on TikTok, particularly the intersections of aesthetic strategies and activist tactics, this track, facilitated by Elena Pilipets and Julia Bee, focuses on the contemporary online imaginaries of climate activism and climate change denial. The hashtags #letztegeneration and #klimakleber or ‘climate stickers’—a term coined by the German media to describe climate activists who glue themselves to the cities’ streets as a form of protest—will be at the heart of our investigation.

In line with feminist and intersectional approaches (Ahmed 2004; D’ignazio and Klein 2020; Sundén and Paasonen 2020), we attend specifically to the entanglements of embodied performance, gestures, and speech, asking: How does TikTok engagement contribute to both climate catastrophe denial and the mobilization against climate activism? Which affective intensities and associations stick or fail to stick onto activists’ bodies? What spaces of critique and political intervention may they allow against the background of social media debates around feminism, sexism, and racism? And to which extent can we identify the potential for tactical reclaiming? Facilitators will combine TikTok video metadata with experimental visual methods of collage and ethical fabrication. The crafting and collective interpretation of situated data visualizations with particular attention to the body’s performative (and contested) nature will guide our exploration throughout. Participants will learn

how to work with dynamic visual content and make sense of related engagement (video captions, stickers, effects, sounds, time of posting, hashtags, engagement metrics, etc.)
how to trace and contextualize patterns of ‘repetition with variation’ in speech and embodied performances of TikTok climate activism and climate change denial
how to re-imagine these patterns through collaborative mapping that moves beyond linear narratives, allowing for networked fabulation instead

Resulting analytical artifacts—such as grids, maps, drawings, montages, and blurs—will support the process of participatory media-native storytelling (Bee 2020; Pilipets 2023). We will use digital methods tools in combination with analog methods of mapping and collage as well as online collaborative platforms, such as Figma or Hotglue. Participants will receive walkthrough documents with tool installation guidelines and further helpful information in advance.

Program

Schedule

Monday, 18 September

Day 1

10:00-10:30	Welcome
10:30-11:15	*Conceptual Introduction* What does it mean to think positionality through (more than) data?
11:15-12:00	Introduction of Thematic Tracks & Group Building Mapping Misappropriation (Track I) #letztegeneration meets #klimakleber (Track II)
12:00-13:30	Lunch
13:30-15:00	Keynote: „Unfolding data: lists, catalogues, supercuts and other visual formats for digital research“, Gabriele Colombo
15:00-15:30	Coffee Break
15:30-17:00	Project Meetings: Spending Time with Data Mapping misappropriation: Positionality and Relational Mapping (Track I) #letztegeneration meets #klimaklerber: Navigating TikTok data (Track II)
17:00-18:00	Get Together *First Exchange of Ideas and Discussion*

Tuesday, 19 September

Day 2

9:30-11:30	Workshop Jason Chao & Elena Pilipets “Memespector: Web Detection and the Multi-Situatedness of the Digital Image”
11:30-12:30	Lunch
12:30-16:00	Project activities: Making sense of data/Finding focus Mapping Misappropriation (Track I) #letztegeneration meets #klimakleber (Track II)
16:00-17:00	Get Together *Reflection and Discussion*

Wednesday, 20 September

Day 3

9:00-12:00	Project activities Selecting research questions/Discussing visualization techniques/Dividing tasks Mapping Misappropriation (Track I) #letztegeneration meets #klimakleber (Track II)
12:00-13:00	Lunch
13:00-18:00	Project activities Testing visualization techniques/Adjusting research questions Mapping Misappropriation (Track I) #letztegeneration meets #klimakleber (Track II)
16:00-18:00	Get Together *Reflection and Discussion*
18:00-open end	Dinner & Schellack