Little Tools Workshop: Digital methods in Science and Technology Studies

Workshop program

The program consists of a lecture, lunch, and a hands-on workshop.

Please register for the event here.

11.00-13.00. The challenge with the digital in STS

Lecture with Andreas Birkbak and Mathieu Jacomy.

The lecture will focus on Andreas' and Mathieu's recent work on the question of fake news and what digital methods has to offer. They will discuss specific tools and ‘recipes’ for tracing the phenomenon of fake news online and discuss these in relation to STS perspectives on issue mapping.

About the lecturers:

Andreas Birkbak is an assistant professor at the Techno-Anthropology Research Group, Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University (campus Copenhagen). He recently published a book on digital methods with Anders Kristian Munk (in Danish: Digitale metoder).

Mathieu Jacomy is a research engineer developing digital methods for the social sciences. He works at the Média Lab at Science Po University in Paris.

Recommended readings (not required):

• Marres, N. (2015). "Why map issues? On Controversy Analysis as a Digital Method”. Science, Technology and Human Values Vol. 40 (5).
• Bounegru et al. (2017). A field guide to fake news: A collection of recipes for those who love to cook with digital methods. Public Data Lab.
• Birkbak, A. & A.K. Munk. (2017). Digitale metoder. Hans Reitzels Forlag.

13.00-14.00. Lunch

Please register here if you wish to join us for lunch.

14.00-16.00. To which research questions can digital tools respond?

The workshop will focus on briefly introducing two tools (around 30 mins) before allowing participants to do hands-on work with a question of their own choice under supervision by Andreas and Mathieu. We will end with a round of brief presentations of the individual experiences.

Recommended preparations

• Bring a laptop (no specific software required except for a web browser)
• Check out the tools Seealsology (http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/seealsology/) and Hyphe (http://hyphe.medialab.sciences-po.fr/)

Organizers

The workshop is organized by the Little Tools Project at the TIK Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.