We’re currently entering the summer lull and hope everyone is taking a well-deserved break.
During our downtime, we’re excited to read the report of the European Digital Media Observatory’s (EDMO) Working Group on Platform-Researcher Data Access, sent to us by our friends at the Institute for Data, Democracy, & Politics (IDDP) today!
“The members of the EDMO Working Group set out to begin developing a Code of Conduct that would provide such guidance. This report provides information about the Working Group’s background and motivations, its composition and procedures, as well as some of the key issues that its members discussed as they examined how to responsibly facilitate data access in a way that is compliant with the GDPR,” says Dr. Rebekah Tromble, Chair of the EDMO Working Group on Platform-to-Researcher Data Access and director of IDDP.
This is a step forward in ethically accessing and conducting research with different types of platform data, and we look forward to seeing its implementation.
Publications and appearances
“I find that while male separatists are more likely to favor both their own narrower online community and the broader ingroup of men, misogynist incels ultimately join male separatists in favoring the broader ingroup of men even as they derogate incels as a narrower online community.” Affiliate Katherine Furl had her first solo-authored research article published! Furl’s research explores the relationship between male separatist and incel communities on Reddit.
“There are two kinds of ways that we project ourselves or our information out into the world. One is conscious. So I send an email, I post a blog message, I tweet, I write an article. Those are conscious things in which I project myself, my thoughts, my information into the world. But there are also many more unconscious ways that we project. We call this information leakage or exo-information, the stuff that leaks from us.” Gary Marchionini spoke to Information Matters about how we are constantly interacting with information.
“Somebody’s really got to be following the story in a sustained way (to discover a debunking)… The majority of people who consume news and information aren’t doing that with this kind of story; it just exists in the ether. Once something ricochets across the internet it’s too late.” Affiliate Nikki Usher spoke to the Chicago Tribune about viral claims that a Chicago high school was creating a race-based grading system.
MIT Libraries updated their YouTube channel with the latest events, including an evening with Tressie McMillan Cottom.
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We’re happy to announce that Tressie McMillan Cottom has been named an officer for the American Sociological Association (ASA) and that Francesca Tripodi has been elected to a council position for the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of ASA!
Coming soon
June 14: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) is presenting: CIRCLE Growing Voters from 2:00pm-3:30pm EST. Full details and registration.
June 24: Deadline for Tech Policy Press’s call for abstracts! Essays on race, ethnicity, technology & elections are due at 5pm EST.
August 1: Submissions for the Labor Tech Book and Graduate Student Paper Awards are due.
Rest of Web
Daniel Kreiss points out the lack of Black scholarship on social media and missing work on social movements like BLM and #MeToo in this recent New Yorker piece asking how harmful social media is.
The AI, Media & Democracy lab is looking for 3 postdocs. If interested, you’d be joining a great team in Amsterdam! The deadline is June 13.
If you’re searching for a new summer read, Tressie is highly recommending “The Violence: A Novel” by Delilah S. Dawson. Let us know what you think if you decide to read it!