Otherwise Engaged.

Analytics and the New Meanings of Engagement Online 

Digital Methods Winter School 2016
11-15 January 2016 

https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2016 
Digital Methods Initiative
University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam
the Netherlands 

 <>Digital Methods Winter School, Data Sprint and Mini-Conference 
The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI), Amsterdam, is holding its annual Winter School on Critical Analytics and the New Meanings of Engagement Online. The format is that of a data sprint, with hands-on work on engagement metrics in for political, social and media research, together with a Mini-conference, where PhD candidates, motivated scholars and advanced graduate students present short papers on digital methods and new media related topics, and receive feedback from the Amsterdam DMI researchers and international participants. Participants need not give a paper at the Mini-conference to attend the Winter School.

‘Otherwise engaged’, the title of the Winter School, implies two projects. The first refers to the (interface) politics of attention whereby online services are variously vying to gain recognition through jumpy banners, push notifications and metrification, including those little red badge numbers on the iPhone that call for labouring and at least marking as read. The other sense refers to how engagement online is currently measured, and how it may be thought of differently and critically if one substitutes return visits and retention rates for forms of political engagement.

Given the medium's power to distract and produce continuous partial attention, the term engagement appears oxymoronic when discussing online attention. However, “user engagement metrics” on the web, such as unique visitors, click-throughs, page views, duration and returns, have been joined by social media measures as likes, shares, comments, liked comments summed to indicate most engaged with content. In Google Analytics an entire vocabulary and set of measures exist to capture engagement. More conceptually the idea that content enlivens and animates, continually, has led to distinctions between liveness and liveliness, where the latter would be considered more meaningful engagement. Whilst there is thus the question of when there is only an appearance of engagement and when one is truly engaged, we are also interested in disengagement, and developing metrics for attention-less content, and that which makes one leave the scene. 

There is also the question of the relationship between engagement metrics and more established notions of political engagement. Is the online making one more of a remote observer than an on-the-ground actor, as political engagement theorist have discussed over and again in terms of slacktivism and clicktivism. Are there techniques to grasp content and activity that lead to apathy? The accompanying data sprint will seek to work with engagement metrics (and create others) to capture the meaning of activity, inquiring into when one is fully, multiply or otherwise engaged, with data from online media organisations (and selected new-form journalism) as well as campaigning by NGOs. 

 <>Digital Methods Mini-Conference at the Winter School 
The annual Digital Methods Mini-Conference at the Winter School, normally a one-day affair, provides the opportunity for digital methods and allied researchers to present short yet complete papers (5,000-7,500 words) and serve as respondents, providing feedback. Often the work presented follows from previous Digital Methods Summer Schools. The mini-conference accepts papers in the general digital methods and allied areas: the hyperlink and other natively digital objects, the website as archived object, web historiographies, search engine critique, Google as globalizing machine, cross-spherical analysis and other approaches to comparative media studies, device cultures, national web studies, Wikipedia as cultural reference, the technicity of (networked) content, post-demographics, platform studies, crawling and scraping, graphing and clouding, and similar.

 <>Key dates 
The deadline for application is 10 December 2015. To apply please send along a letter of motivation, your CV (including postal address), a headshot photo, 100-word bio as well as a copy of your passport (details page only) to winterschool [at] digitalmethods.net . Please indicate whether you would like to follow the Digital Methods Winter School for 6 ECTS credits, or the non-credits option. Notifications of acceptance will be sent on 11 December. If you are participating in the mini-conference the deadline for submission of your paper is 5 January. The mini-conference takes place on Friday 15 January 2016. Please send your mini-conference paper to winterschool [at] digitalmethods.net 
. To attend the Winter School, you need not participate in the mini-conference. The full program and schedule of the Winter School and Mini-conference are available on 7 January 2016.

 <>Fees & Logistics 
The fee for the Digital Methods Winter School 2016 is EUR 595, or if you would like to receive 6 ECTS credits the fee is EUR 695. Bank transfer information will be sent along with the notification on 11 December 2015. 
Students at the University of Amsterdam do not pay fees. Participants from LERU  as well as U21  universities receive a tuition waver of EUR 500 . 
The Winter School is self-catered. The venue is in the center of Amsterdam with abundant coffee houses and lunch places. Participants are expected to find their own housing (airbnb and other short-stay sites are helpful), or we have available accommodations at the Student Hotel:
The Student Hotel Amsterdam
Jan van Galenstraat 335
1061 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 760 4000
info-amsterdam [at] thestudenthotel.com 
Arrival: 10 January 2016
Departure: 16 January 2016
EUR 440
The Student Hotel Amsterdam West website 
If you would like to have accommodations at the Student Hotel, please notify the organizers when applying on 10 December.
The Winter School closes on Friday with a festive event, after the final presentations. Here is a guide to the Amsterdam new media scene . For further questions, please contact the organizers, Jonathan Gray and Natalia Sanchez at winterschool[at] digitalmethods.net 
.
Please bring your laptop computer, your European plug as well as the VGA adaptor for connecting to the projector. 

About DMI
The Digital Methods Winter School is part of the Digital Methods Initiative, Amsterdam, dedicated to reworking method for Internet-related research. The Digital Methods Initiative holds the annual Digital Methods Summer Schools (nine to date), which are intensive and full time, 2-week undertakings in the Summertime. The 2016 Summer School will take place 27 June - 8 July 2016. The coordinators of the Digital Methods Initiative are Sabine Niederer and Esther Weltevrede (PhD candidates in New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam), and the director is Richard Rogers, Professor of New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam. Liliana Bounegru is the managing director. Digital methods are online at http://www.digitalmethods.net/ . The DMI about page  includes a substantive introduction  (or founding narrative), and also a list of Digital Methods people , with bios. DMI holds occasional Autumn and Spring workshops, such as ones on mapping climate change and vulnerability indexes  as well as on studying right-wing extremism and populism  online. There are also a Digital Methods book  (MIT Press, 2013), papers and articles  by DMI researchers as well as Digital Methods tools . Recently a complimentary Issue Mapping book  was published.

Social
For those of you that use Twitter we are using the #DMI16 hashtag  as the backchannel for communication. Some pictures from Winter School 2015 . Here is the Facebook Group  from last year's Winter School. Here are pictures from a variety of DMI Summer and Winter School  flickr streams.
We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam in January.


Dr. Carolin Gerlitz
Assistant Professor in New Media
Program Director MA New Media & Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam

c.gerlitz@uva.nl 
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.gerlitz/ 

From: Hannah Barton >
Tate Britain, Clore Auditorium
Monday 23 November 2015, 9.30 – 17.30
Free, booking required – book here.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/conference/unboxing-archive-how-tate-transforming-access-our-artistic-heritage


The Archives & Access digitisation project draws on the world’s largest archive of British Art – the Tate Archive – and brings it together online with Tate’s art collection, giving unprecedented worldwide access to original materials. This has been made possible through a £1.9 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.



As the project moves into the final stage project team members and collaborators will be participating in a day-long conference to share knowledge, experience, and invite discussion. The conference will explore approaches to digitisation processes – from funding to online features, conservation to rights clearance, preservation to publishing – and will conclude with a panel discussion and audience Q&A.



Poster sessions will also be held in the adjacent Duffield Room, and tours of Tate Archive and the project’s digitisation suite will be running during lunch (numbers for the tours are strictly limited and must be booked in advance – email Sophie Risner sophie.risner@tate.org.uk to request a place).

Full programme coming soon.



About the digitisation project


With 52,000 pieces digitised from a selection of artists’ archives, Tate’s online visitors can now search, browse and make links between archive items and collection works. In addition the project has resulted in the creation of new digital resources, such as the interactive Albums feature, the online crowdsourcing transcription tool AnnoTate (produced in collaboration with Zooniverse) and video learning resource ‘Animating the Archives’ which brings to life some of the processes, practices and stories behind the artists’ lives and working contexts. A volunteer programme welcomes engagement from Preservation Volunteers and Archive Explorers, whilst an associated learning programme enables new audiences to engage with these materials in partnership with cultural and social organisations across five regions of Britain: South Wales; Liverpool and Merseyside; Tyne and Wear; Margate and Greater London.



Finally, the Archives & Access project includes the creation of new dedicated learning and public gallery spaces at Tate Britain, featuring a Digital Learning Studio, and the Archive Gallery, the first permanent gallery at Tate dedicated to displaying library and archive items, as well as interactive digital versions of artists’ sketchbooks.



Project progress has been documented on Tate’s blog channel.

Hannah Barton
Project Co-ordinator
Transforming Tate Britain:
Buildings, Archives, Access
Library and Archive
Tate Britain
SW1P 4RG
020 7887 8839

Please see the Project’s Webpage, Blog and Video Series for information about the project.
www.tate.org.uk
Please note that any information sent, received or held by Tate may be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Sue Gollifer
Director ISEA International HQ
University of Brighton, UK
Info@isea-web.org
http://www.isea-web.org/



___________________________________________________________
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International M.A. in New Media and Digital Culture ­at the University of Amsterdam

Call for Applications for­ fall 2016, rolling admissions start in mid November

One-year and two-year New Media M.A. Programs available. For the two-year "Research Master's Program: New Media Specialisation," see below.

### International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (one-year program) ###

/// Overview

The MA Program in media studies New Media and Digital Culture offers a comprehensive and critical approach to new media research, practices and theory. It builds upon the pioneering new media scene that Amsterdam is known for, with an emphasis on the study of Internet culture. The University of Amsterdam has been ranked among the top 10 universities worldwide for studying Media and Communication by the QS World University Rankings . In this one year Master students gain an in-depth knowledge in new media theory, including perspectives such as software studies, political economy, media history and other critical traditions, and applied to such topics as social media, data cultures, and locative devices, whilst exploring what is actually ‘new’ in new media. Key component is the emerging area of digital methods, an ensemble of internet research approaches and techniques that work with web data and study natively digital objects. Additionally, students can choose to train in the areas of issue mapping, creative industries, digital writing and publishing, and social media research. The MA program combines a variety of teaching formats, ranging from lectures and group projects to lab sessions and creative projects. Students produce a wide portfolio of work, including theoretically engaged essays, empirical research projects, new media experiments, blog entries, in addition to organizing symposia. The program thereby enables students to contribute to timely discourses on digital culture, to conduct innovative research projects, and to critically engage in new media practices. 

Students maintain a new media issues blog, http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl , recognized as among the leading academic blogs on the subject of digital culture, where they critique and discuss books, events, and emergent digital objects. Students also get involved in a lively new media culture, both at the university, where internationally renowned speakers present their work and collaborative research projects are developed, and beyond. Cultural institutions, such as the Waag Society, the Balie Center for Culture and Politics, and Mediamatic regularly host inspiring events. The Institute of Network Cultures, initiators of such events as UnlikeUs, MoneyLab, Society of the Query, MyCreativity, and Video Vortex, regularly collaborates with the program. Digital media practitioners, such as Appsterdam, various Fablabs, and hacker festivals regularly open their doors to interested audiences and students are invited to blog at new media festivals like Impakt or Cinekid.


/// Curriculum

The New Media and Digital Culture program is a one year MA (60 EC) that begins in early September and ends with a festive graduation ceremony at the end of August. It is divided into two semesters:

First Semester (September - January)
In the first semester all students follow new media core courses which focus on practices, methods and theories. Students learn how to research digital media and how to use digital media for research. The New Media Research Practices course engages students in recent methodological debates around big data, realtime research, working with web data. Students conduct experimental new media projects, run a wiki wiki.digitalmethods.net/MoM/  and the Masters of Media blog mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl . 

The New Media Research Methods unit, taught by Prof. Richard Rogers, trains students in digital methods research, a set of novel techniques and a methodological outlook for social and cultural research with the web (see www.digitalmethods.net ). Students use “natively” digital methods to investigate state Internet censorship, search engine rankings, website histories, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, and other web platforms by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data through various analytical techniques. They participate in a Data Sprint which is part of the international Digital Methods Winter School.

New Media Theories introduces students to major theoretical frameworks in new media studies, including cybernetics, software studies, digital labor theories, network criticism, media ecology, and cognitive/communicative capitalism. An important aspect involves reading influential texts on media forms and digital networked technologies, addressing key thinkers such as Marshall McLuhan, Norbert Wiener, Vilem Flusser, Friedrich Kittler, Alexander R. Galloway, N. Katherine Hayles, Matthew Fuller, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Jodi Dean. Students engage with theories through creative and reflexive assignments, including a symposium presentation.

Second Semester (February - June)
In the second semester, students have the opportunity to further specialize by following electives and conducting their MA thesis. In the last years electives offered contained courses on issue mapping for politics, social media & creative industries, radical publishing, new media literary forms, and other courses offered outside of new media (electives may change each academic year). Digital Issue Mapping for Politics is concerned with mapping online discourse, and is a member of the international network of mapping courses following, amongst others, Bruno Latour's methods. Social Media and Creative Industries explores the role of social media in the creative industries. Radical Publishing offers a socio-historical perspective on alternative publishing practices from activists, citizen journalists and communities. The subject contains both theoretical and practical components, as students have to produce an e-publication. Against a background of current debates from media and literary theory, the New Media Literary Forms class applies digital methods techniques to the end of researching and creating new forms of digital fiction. 

The program of study concludes with the MA thesis, an original analysis that makes a contribution to the field, undertaken with the close mentorship of a faculty supervisor. The graduation ceremony includes an international symposium with renowned speakers.


/// Career perspectives

Graduates in New Media and Digital Culture will have gained the critical faculties, skills, and outlook that will enable them to pursue a career in research as well as in the public and private sectors, ranging from NGOs, government, and cultural institutions to online marketing, software development, startups and the growing field of creative industries. Various alumni have also started their own successful new media business. As the exposure to the internet, social media and related technologies continues to grow, new media researchers are in demand in a variety of sectors. With digital technologies becoming the preferred platforms for business, information exchange, cultural expression, and political struggle, research skills focusing on these complex and dynamic environments are becoming central to working in these fields. Further areas of occupation include journalism, digital analytics, project and community management. Many alumni also pursued a research oriented career, either within organisations or in academia, by continuing with a PhD program. Past and present staff of the new media team, including Anne Helmond, Esther Weltevrede, and Natalia Sanchez, are alumni of the MA in New Media and Digital Culture or have followed the Media Studies Research Master.


/// Student Life

The quality-of-living in Amsterdam ranks among the highest of international capitals. UvA's competitive tuition and the frequency of spoken English both on and off-campus make the program especially accommodating for foreign students. The city's many venues, festivals, and other events provide remarkably rich cultural offerings and displays of technological innovation. The program has many ties to cultural institutions and companies active in the new media sector, where internship opportunities and collaborations may be available, in consultation with the student's thesis supervisor. Students attend and blog, tweet or otherwise capture local new media events and festivals, while commenting as well on larger international issues and trends pertaining to new media. The quality of student life is equally to be found in the university's lively and varied intellectual climate. New Media and Digital Culture students come from North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and across Europe; they draw from academic and professional backgrounds including journalism, art and design, marketing, computing, the humanities, politics and the social sciences.


/// Application and Deadlines

Rolling admissions from mid November 2015 to spring 2016 for fall 2016 admission. The final deadlines will be communicated on the Graduate School website shortly: http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/application/application-deadlines/application-deadlines-2016-2017.html  

More Info & Questions

- Applications, entry requirements, scholarships & fees: http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/programmes/item/new-media-and-digital-culture.html . 

- Student information website - http://student.uva.nl/mnm/ 
- Further questions regarding admission & applications? Please write to UvA's Graduate School of the Humanities, graduateschoolhumanities-fgw[at]uva.nl  http://gsh.uva.nl/contact  

- Specific questions about the curriculum? Please write to Dr. Carolin Gerlitz, New Media Program Coordinator, University of Amsterdam, c.gerlitz[at]uva.nl 


### Research Master's in Media Studies, New Media Specialization (two-year program) ###

/// Overview

The New Media Research Master is a specialization within the Media Studies Research Master's Degree Program, and focuses on the theoretical, artistic, practical and methodological study of digital culture. The University of Amsterdam has been ranked among the top 10 universities worldwide for studying Media and Communication by the QS World University Rankings . The intensive and selective two year program has been developed for students with proven ability in, and passion for, research. The New Media Research Master has two 'routes,' the theoretical aesthetic and the practical empirical ones. In the theoretical aesthetic route, students focus on contemporary media theory and critical media art. The other route is the practical empirical, which is the other specialty of new media research in Amsterdam: digital methods and issue mapping. Students also may combine coursework from each of the two routes, putting together a course package that treats aesthetics and visualization, on the one hand, or media art and digital methods, on the other. 

As a crucial component of the Amsterdam New Media Research Program, the New Media Research Master encourages fieldwork, studying abroad, and lab work, which can also provide materials for the thesis. In undertaking fieldwork, students are given the opportunity to spend a period abroad for structured data collection and study, doing either a 'research internship' or an independent project, supervised by a staff member. For example, in the past students have studied ICTs for development in Africa, and electronics factories in China. The lab work can result in a research project that combines web data collection, tool use and development as well as visualisation. It often addresses a contemporary issue, such as NSA Leaks or international protests, and brings together a group of researchers in a data sprint, hackathon or barcamp, intensively working to output new infographics, blog postings and research reports which contribute to international new media debates.

Outstanding New Media research master graduates are expected to compete favorably for PhD positions nationally and internationally, and have gained skill sets which enable new media research in scholarly and professional settings. 

The New Media Research Master Specialization has as its target 15 students annually. 


/// Curriculum

- Year one
1st Semester: students follow the core courses of the MA New Media & Digital Culture, which provide in-depth training in Internet critique and empirical analysis of the web addressing practices, theories and methods. The core courses cover an introduction to searching & collecting, key communities & journals in the field, blogging, working with data, and relevant methodological debates in new media research. Building on these skills, students are trained in Digital Research Methods with Prof. Richard Rogers and learn how to collect, analyse and visualise web data. Concurrently students take New Media Theories classes, which introduce students to some of the major theoretical traditions in new media, including perspectives such as software studies, political economy, media ecologies, and other critical traditions (For more details on these courses, see the one-year MA description above). 

2nd Semester: the students follow the research master core course Media & Politics, which places both historically crucial and contemporary political manifestos in relation to media analyses, encouraging a consideration of concepts such as labour, spectacle, the machine, identity and affect. Students also have an elective, and may choose between the electives of the one year program, attending Winter or Summer Schools, or tutorials specifically offered for the Research MA (For more details on theme seminars, see the one-year MA description above). 

- Year two
1st Semester: students follow the research master core course Comparative Media Studies or may pursue a "research internship" or a study abroad program with partner universities. They may undertake fieldwork for a research project, or join a digital methods lab project. Students also may follow an elective course or tutorial, taken from the broader offerings of the faculty of the humanities.

2nd Semester: students follow an elective course and also write the thesis, which is expected to be original and make a contribution to a discourse in the field. The research master's degree program concludes with a thesis conference and a festive graduation.


/// Application and Deadlines

Rolling admissions from mid November 2015 to spring 2016 for fall 2016 admission. The final deadlines will be communicated on the Graduate School website shortly: http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/application/application-deadlines/application-deadlines-2016-2017.html  

More Info & Questions

- International Research M.A. in Media Studies - University of Amsterdam - http://gsh.uva.nl/ma-programmes/programmes/item/media-studies-research.html  for details, including fees. When applying, indicate that your application is for the "New Media Specialization."

- Student information website - http://student.uva.nl/mmic/ 
- Further questions regarding admission & applications? Please write to UvA's Graduate School of the Humanities, graduateschoolhumanities-fgw[at]uva.nl  http://gsh.uva.nl/contact  

- Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to Dr. Bernhard Rieder, Media Studies Research Master Coordinator, University of Amsterdam, b.rieder[at]uva.nl 


### New Media M.A. Faculty - University of Amsterdam ### 

Richard Rogers, Professor and Chair. Web epistemology, digital methods. Publications include Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004/2005), awarded American Society for Information Science and Technology's 2005 Best Information Science Book of the Year Award, and Digital Methods (MIT Press, 2013). Founding director of govcom.org  and digitalmethods.net .

Bernhard Rieder, Associate Professor. Digital Methods, software theory and politics. Current research interests include search engine politics and the mechanization of knowledge production. http://thepoliticsofsystems.net 
Jan Simons, Associate Professor. Mobile Culture, gaming, film theory. Publications include Playing The Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema (AUP, 2007). Project Director, Mobile Learning Game Kit, Senior Member, Digital Games research group. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.a.simons/ 
Carolin Gerlitz, Assistant Professor. Digital research, software/platform studies, social media, economic sociology, topology, numeracy, value and valuation, brands, and issue mapping online. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.gerlitz/ 
Niels van Doorn. Assistant Professor. Materialization of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spaces. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/n.a.j.m.vandoorn/ 
Thomas Poell. Assistant Professor. Social media and the transformation of activist communication in different parts of the world. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/t.poell/ 
Anne Helmond, Assistant Professor. Digital methods, software studies, platform studies, social media and data flows between web platforms. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/a.p.helmond/  

Stefania Milan, Assistant Professor. Technology & society, digital activism, politics of big data, alternative publishing. https://stefaniamilan.net  

Erik Borra, Lecturer. Data science, digital methods, issue mapping online. Digital methods lead developer. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.k.borra/ 
Esther Weltevrede, Lecturer. Controversy mapping with the Web, temporalities and dynamics online, device studies. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/e.j.t.weltevrede/ 
Marc Tuters, Lecturer. New media literary forms, avant-garde media history, locative media. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.d.tuters/  

Natalia Sanchez, Lecturer. Issue mapping, memory, suffering, emotions and body sensations.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/n.sanchezquerubin  



Dr. Carolin Gerlitz
Assistant Professor in New Media
Program Director MA New Media & Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam

c.gerlitz@uva.nl 
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.gerlitz/