A RING OF FIRE? DIGITALLY MEDIATED PUBLICS IN COPENHAGEN ROAD
PRICING CONTROVERSY ANDREAS BIRKBAK C-DIST LUNCH SEMINAR 8 OCT
2013
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1.Publics? 2.Digitally mediated? 3.Copenhagen road pricing
controversy? 4.A research agenda? Outline TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY
RESEARCH GROUP 2
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Using link analysis to map actors in hot situations (Callon
1998) Background: Digital mapping of controversies
TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP 3
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3....in the Copenhagen road pricing controversy
TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP 4
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1. Digitally mediated publics? TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH
GROUP 5 What do social media have to do with publics? Is it not a
rather private sphere? the citizen engages and is enabled
politically through a private media environment located within the
individuals personal and private space (Papacharissi 2010:131)
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- or distributed issue publics? Acknowledging the role that the
problems that affect people play in bringing politics about does
not mean the end of democracy, but its beginning. (Marres 2005:217)
1. Digitally mediated publics? TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
6
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From digitally mediated to digital methods? Mediated suggests
that the category of a public is a stable entity, defined by social
theory. However, pragmatist thinkers like John Dewey (and now
Noortje Marres) have argued that abstract categories are of little
consequence. Methods suggests to instead see that digital tools
constantly do live social research (Marres & Weltevrede 2013)
For example, counting and visualizing. Following this logic, using
digital methods means to acknowledge and reappropriate native
analytical moves for social research. In practice all methods are
part apparatus, part object (ibid.:23) 2. Digitally mediated
publics? TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP 7
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Newspapers as a contrast: The public that calls itself a
public? The school of debate and critique at Politiken enrolls 150
young people for one semester. et kvalitetsprojekt [om] debatten
derude i vores demokrati - Bo Lidegaard, editor- in-chief,
Politiken 1. Digitally mediated publics? TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY
RESEARCH GROUP 8
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Possible intervention: The Facebook issue space?
TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP 9
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A praxiography of publics (Mol 2002): Studying how publics are
done in multiple, co-existing, overlapping, material ways? (In
order to avoid leaving the question of publics to political
philosophy) Studying the object: Issues What connections were made
and not made when the road pricing controversy played itself out in
Politiken and on Facebook pages? How did these assemblages achieve
publicity? Studying the apparatus: Media technologies How does
Politiken and Facebook work as live research methods? How do they
analyze their own practices? How can I reappropriate that for my
praxiography? 4. A research agenda? TECHNO-ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH
GROUP 10
