{"title":"Ghana’s blockchain scene on WhatsApp","authors":"Betty Ackah","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v5i2.141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v5i2.141","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Social media sites with global reach like Twitter and WhatsApp are playing a paramount role in the communication, socializing, and business practices of Ghana’s blockchain community. Specifically, WhatsApp has become the platform powering the principal instantiation of blockchain in Ghana, which is trading and investing in cryptocurrencies. Considering the country’s high internet fees and sometimes unreliable network access, WhatsApp is a particularly endearing platform to facilitate the blockchain scene due to the low internet data usage that it requires. Drawing on empirical research data from 33 semi-structured interviews with blockchain enthusiasts in Ghana, this paper analyzes the particularities of blockchain’s adoption and spread in its primarily virtual scene. Key to this examination is the consideration of the affordances and constraints of WhatsApp as the primary spatial frame driving and shaping blockchain’s adoption and use in Ghana. As coagents with the digital sphere they transact and interact on, members of the blockchain community are collectively and individually perpetuating processes of knowledge creation and communal exchanges interspersed with values of competitive innovating.\u0000\u0000Keywords: Ghana, blockchain scene, WhatsApp, cryptocurrency trading and investment","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126385060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Centralising Qualitative Research in Big Data Methods Through Algorithmic Ethnography","authors":"Naomi Barnes, Sam Hames","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.129","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Responding to the challenge for qualitative researchers to claim a central place in conversations about big data, analytics, datafication, data mining and the role of algorithms, this article describes a mixed-method research partnership focused on algorithmic ethnography. In the debates about the opacity of online algorithms, qualitative researchers typically advocate for access to code. This standard discourse centralises the technical aspects of big data and networked ethnographies. Instead, this article outlines a research methodology that analyses algorithmic discourses by working alongside the technical expertise of data scientists and utilizes the affordability of big data methods to do qualitative work. The potential for qualitative research skills to investigate the underlying technical processes that frame online social interactions is proposed as a way to place how people understand the world at the centre of big data research.\u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130065295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-knowledge in Medical Practices","authors":"A. Sendra, Sinikka Torkkola, Jaana Parviainen","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.152","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Social media has transformed how individuals handle their illnesses. While many patients increasingly use these online platforms to understand embodied information surrounding their conditions, healthcare professionals often frame these practices as negative and do not consider the expertise that patients generate through social media. Through a combination of insights from social epistemology and ignorance studies, this paper problematizes the distinctive understandings of social media between patients and healthcare professionals from a different perspective. A total of four ideas are introduced: (1) healthcare professionals see embodied knowledge that arises from patients’ social media practices as uncomfortable knowledge; (2) healthcare professionals engage in several behaviours to preserve their authority and power in front of embodied knowledge created through these online platforms; (3) failing to consider embodied knowledge can have consequences not only in terms of trust between patients and healthcare professionals but also in connection with epistemological populism and the transition towards patient-centred care; and (4) media and digital health literacy could help healthcare professionals enhance the uses of social media in healthcare. Adopting this framework allows not only to offer valuable insights into how healthcare professionals manage patients’ social media practices, but also opens new avenues to improve healthcare digitisation.\u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"17 3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133563934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kiran Kappeler, Noemi Festic, M. Latzer, Tanja Rüedy
{"title":"Coping with Algorithmic Risks","authors":"Kiran Kappeler, Noemi Festic, M. Latzer, Tanja Rüedy","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.130","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Algorithmic selection is omnipresent in various domains of our online everyday lives: it ranks our search results, curates our social media news feeds, or recommends videos to watch and music to listen to. This widespread application of algorithmic selection on the internet can be associated with risks like feeling surveilled (S), feeling exposed to distorted information (D), or feeling like one is using the internet too excessively (O). One way in which internet users can cope with such algorithmic risks is by applying self-help strategies such as adjusting their privacy settings (Sstrat), double-checking information (Dstrat), or deliberately ignoring automated recommendations (Ostrat). This article determines the association of the theoretically derived factors risk awareness (1), personal risk affectedness (2), and algorithm skills (3) with these self-help strategies. The findings from structural equation modelling on survey data representative for the Swiss online population (N2018=1,202) show that personal affectedness by algorithmic risks, awareness of algorithmic risks and algorithm skills are associated with the use of self-help strategies. These results indicate that besides implementing statutory regulation, policy makers have the option to encourage internet users’ self-help by increasing their awareness of algorithmic risks, clarifying how such risks affect them personally, and promoting their algorithm skills.\u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"97 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116669479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AI as Social Actor","authors":"Marc Heimann, Anne-Friederike Hübener","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.159","url":null,"abstract":"Given the social and political influence of social networks, which are often structured and organized by what today falls under the umbrella term artificial intelligence, we seek to define this new social frame. Most importantly, we ask how to frame this new social sphere in current theory and how it can be conceptualized for social sciences. However, this is not possible without constructing a logical frame for a problem as deeply entwined with the modern history of logic as AI is. We will therefore frame the problem of AIs as social actors within the logical discourse that Lacanian psychoanalysis opened. Our analysis shows that the inherent indeterminate that constitutes the psychoanalytic subject is omitted from AI-supplanted identities. Logical analysis also allows us to discern a specific mode of subjectivation that is made much more prominent through the normalization of phenomena like echo chambers and online identities.","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115641907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Silencing Tactics","authors":"Tanya Osborne","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v5i1.122","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding how and why online professional knowledge sharing communities develop issues with gender inclusion is essential to building safe and respectful environments. Trans and nonbinary gender identities are under constant threat and scrutiny, and trans people frequently face harms in online environments. Through digital ethnography, I explore how an international online programming community, Stack Exchange, responded to the challenges of implementing trans and nonbinary inclusive language policies. I discuss the rhetorical strategies and silencing tactics deployed by the community in response to policy changes. The analysis draws on Dotson’s concept of testimonial smothering to argue that epistemic violence prevents dialogue about the importance of respecting preferred pronouns. The paper concludes with reflections on the implementation of pronoun policies in international communities.","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128114528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katrien Jacobs, Degel Cheung, Vasileios Maltezos, Cecilia Wong
{"title":"The Pepe the Frog Image-Meme in Hong Kong","authors":"Katrien Jacobs, Degel Cheung, Vasileios Maltezos, Cecilia Wong","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.131","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper examines how Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character originally created by American cartoonist Matt Furie, and currently a global digital image-meme of online activism, was adopted and adapted in Hong Kong during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill and Law Movement (??????????; faan deoi tou faan tiu lai sau ding wan dung) (hereafter: anti-ELAB Movement) on one of the most prevalent protest platforms, the LIHKG forum (LIHKG??). We combined a computational big data analysis of the posts’ metadata and a qualitative analysis of the Hong Kong Pepe image-meme to examine how it contributed to highly emotive and contentious discussions about the future of Hong Kong. The aim is to reveal how activists on this platform framed this imported image-meme to make statements about Hong Kong politics, as well as gender and democracy. The scope of visual content on social media today creates an opportunity for cross-disciplinary collaboration and new methodological approaches that combine a scaling of large quantities of images with representative sampling and theories of online activism. Our theoretical interest aims at documenting how activists reveled in various visual cultures and adopted the image-meme within social media discourse. We are equally interested in identifying the gender representations of these figures and how they drove emotional responses and discussions during the movement’s high points. The Anti-ELAB protests and the LIHKG forum were specifically characterized by a large participation of younger women. Alongside the proposition for Hong Kong self-determination, the forum hosted discussions about the role of female activists within the struggle. Since Pepe had previously been adopted by xenophobic alt-right groups and the misogynist “manosphere,” we monitored and interpreted recurring Pepe-imagery to find out how normative-conservative, or gender-fluid and emancipatory tropes were used on the LIHKG forum. \u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128455960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hive Mind Online","authors":"S. Ho, J. Nickerson, Qian Zhang","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.119","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study investigates the efficacy of collective sensing as a mechanism for unveiling disinformation in group interaction. Small group interactions were simulated to experiment on the effects of a group reaction to incentivized deceptive behavior when initiated by social influencers. We use multilevel modeling to examine the individual communication data nested within group interactions. The study advances the use of computational efficacy to support the supposition of collective sensing—by analyzing individual social actors’ communicative language and interaction within group contexts. Language-action cues as stigmergic signals were systemically extracted, compared and analyzed within groups as well as between groups. The results demonstrate that patterns of group communication become more concentrated and expressive after a social influencer becomes deceptive, even when the act of deception itself is not obvious to any individual. That is, individuals in the group characterize deceptive situations differently, but communication patterns depict the group’s ability to collectively sense deception from circulating disinformation. The study confirms our postulation of using collective sensing to detect deceptive influences in a group.\u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"04 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129774692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social [Media] Distancing","authors":"Jennifer Cearns","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.48","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.48","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines the role of digital ethnographic methods in an emerging research landscape struck by COVID-19, whereby more traditional anthropological methods have been rendered impossible due to social distancing restrictions. It argues that while anthropology has long privileged physical proximity and presence as a central tenet of ethnographic method, digital methods can also afford a certain sense of social distance, which in fact can be beneficial to the research process. It draws upon experiences of conducting fifteen months of fieldwork both online and offline amongst marginalised groups in Cuba and its diaspora in Miami to reveal the ways in which digital distance can level the relationship between researcher and researched, and ultimately lead to a more ethical way of carrying out fieldwork amongst vulnerable communities.\u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126318628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Humans of Instagram","authors":"M. Tewatia, Sramana Majumdar","doi":"10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.120","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Instagram has become a contemporary platform for presenting our digital identity. In this study, the Instagram influencer phenomenon is investigated from an identity, self-presentation, and impression management perspective. By focusing on the language of Instagram that enables this identity, its navigation and manifestations are explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with 8 fashion, beauty and lifestyle influencers, and the obtained data was analysed through the approach of discourse analysis, rooted in discursive psychology. Prominent discourses include a critical discussion on the ideas of aesthetic influencer identity, ‘handle names’, ‘follower’s gaze’, ‘stories’, ‘posts’, and ‘filters’. The findings provide an exploratory and critical perspective on the ways in which Instagram is creating and shaping identities. By offering an understanding of the facets of the influencer identity, this pioneering study highlights the different negotiations, conflicts, and resolutions in the performance of this identity.\u0000","PeriodicalId":199704,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Digital Social Research","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124971609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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