Week 7: October 5 & 7

What’s Due Next?

This Week

• Tuesday (today): Keyword Data
• Thursday: Response post to “Data”

Near Future

• Access the full text of Keywords for Media Studies to select an original Keyword to read and report on during class on Thursday, October 14

What’s Coming Up?

• Grades for Response Paper 1 (I’m working on it and hope to finish by Friday)
• Grades for Field Experience Report on Çudamani (I haven’t started but plan to finish over the weekend)
• Read All You Need is Kill and watch Edge of Tomorrow by Sunday, October 24

Tuesday, October 5

• How was family weekend?
• What media did you watch, listen to, or engage with over the weekend?
• What did you discover about identity over the weekend?

Characteristics of data

1. Data are collected insights that lay a foundation for argument.
2. Data gain significance through association with other data, assembled to “say something” (a rhetorical, meaning-making activity)
3. Data’s potential is to facilitate narrative.
4. Data may or may not point toward culturally stable referrents, meaning contextualizing data may require research.
5. Data are neither qualitative nor quantitative (which is never what we actually say in research).
6. Media technologies capture data (which is why we’re studying data as a keyword).
7. Data collections may contribute to a “technically mediated managerial gaze” (p. 57) that objectifies what we assume to be the human subject (and that’s us)

Categorizing data capture approaches

1. Where do you see data captured about you, with or without consent? Let’s try to name as many sources as possible.
2. Let’s classify these data capturing approaches or methods in three categories:
   1. Self-assembled information, where data is self-nominated (see p. 56)
   2. Other-assembled information, where data is captured by third parties (see p. 56)
   3. Community-oriented information, where data is captured for the public good (see p. 57)
   4. Gathered via ambient means that’s neither fully voluntary nor fully involuntary.
3. What conclusions can you draw about the ways that data are collected about you? What conclusions are you unable to draw based on this exercise? Why or why not?

Thursday, October 7

Part 1: Watching Media

As a class, let’s watch “Whistleblower: Facebook is Misleading the Public on Progress against Hate Speech, Violence, Misinformation.”

Think about how the keyword data helps you better understand the significance of the whistleblower’s allegations. Use the following guidelines about how media captures information:

1. Self-assembled information, where data is self-nominated (see p. 56)
2. Other-assembled information, where data is captured by third parties (see p. 56)
3. Community-oriented information, where data is captured for the public good (see p. 57)
4. Gathered via ambient means that’s neither fully voluntary nor fully involuntary

Which of these is at work in Facebook based on the whistleblower’s testimony in the video? Explain your conclusion.

Use this Google Doc to take collaborative notes.

Part 2: Research Methods for New Technology

Think about how the keyword data might be at work on the page itself. Let’s do an experiment.

1. Let’s look at how many trackers are running on the CBS 60 Minutes page. What does this tell us about CBS News and it’s interests? How do you know?
2. Let’s look at the data going out and coming in from the browser using Chrome Developer Tools
3. Developer Tools enable capturing HTTP Archive (HAR) files, which reveal the associations of data in browsing activity
4. Let’s look at the HAR file to help us understand what’s happening millisecond by millisecond when visiting this page.
5. What conclusions about data can you draw from this exercise?