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I think this article is really spot on in providing an important model for empirically studying and representing the spread of ideas (or controversies) between media and how participatory and professional media influence one another. The fact that this article is written as much for academics as for activists is also exciting (and scary) to me, as a means of thinking about agenda-setting and influence. How might access to these tools help activist campaigns, and how might they swing back to challenge them? How can you really measure effect? "Even when we are able to access the data we need for analysis, interpretation is complicated by the specificity of individualized media experiences, where we've each curated our own individualized lists of sources on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This can leave us with very different understandings of the day's news. Is it possible to speak meaningfully about a media agenda when agendas are set by individuals following a combination of friends and professional sources they've chosen to meet personal preferences and needs?"

I've heard great things about this tool from fellow grad students and profs. It'd be nice to get a quick overview of how to use it if possible...

For those who may want to gather some quick demographics about an area in the U.S., BAO a free App from ESRI is very useful. Below are some of the features the App offers. Use on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Get up-to-date facts, using the latest Esri Data, about prospective customers (e.g., age, income, education, home ownership, lifestyle, and spending habits). Compare one address against another or against the county, state or US. Analyze an area within one-mile of your location. Instantly determine if a location fits your needs with Smart Map. Share your facts with others via e-mail.

Was Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer actions malicious or do you feel he was only trying to get AT&T's attention for their own mistake? Should he be prosecuted for his actions?

That's an odd one, and really highlights the different notions of public and private spaces online. He went to some effort to get that information, so my kneejerk reaction is to say that what he did was wrong and that he should be prosecuted for it. It would certainly be unethical for an ethnographer to gather data that way, but should it be illegal? EFF calls those pages public, but I think "public" web pages are more like "public" spaces in a private building. He was clearly on their corporate premises, trying to sneak into hidden areas-he had to bombard the site with fake device IDs to get to them, and built a tool to do so. It may not be akin to breaking and entering, but what constitutes trespassing in a digital realm? If a physical office kept records in unlocked closets, would it be illegal to check all the doors in the waiting room, and take pictures when one opened? Or would we be up in arms about that office's recordkeeping practices? Ultimately, the main outcome I'd have hoped for would be requirements for corporations like AT&T to revise their security practices. What Auernheimer did was wildly unethical and without even the veneer of true white hat hacking, but I have no idea what to do with him.

I was looking back at this (really interesting) multimedia writing work by Anne Wysocki and noticed how many of the pieces required special players and ample download time/space - Flash Player, Shockwave Player, 1.5 MB of download space - which got me thinking about platform/storage restrictions and digital accessibility. In many instances, a researcher may need not only specific digital skills/knowledge, but also specific platforms, players, software, memory space, etc. to conduct her work. And as players, platforms, software, etc. are upgraded, older digital texts may become less accessible. On that note, I have been taking screen shots of all of the scenes in the Facebook game I'm currently studying. Why? One reason is so I can put these screen shots into a presentation, but the more pressing reason is that another game I'm really interested in looking at (Food Force, a social media game from 2005 - so ancient, right?) is no longer accessible. In its place is a Facebook page with a big bandaged thumb and a "Sorry! This page has been removed." message. An ethnography conducted in a digital space, it seems, requires just as much "recording" as one in an offline space.

The life and preservation of the digital world is a huge question, and one that I don't think enough people are considering. I see more and more of my friends taking all their photos with smartphones and loading them to Instagram or Facebook, or worse never moving them beyond their phones. I wonder what photos will have survived in 20 years when their children are looking to make wedding or anniversary slide shows, or simply becoming interested in their own pasts. There are no hard copies of these images, and while hard copies are vulnerable, so are digital copies for a number of reasons.

great points in this discussion, especially around issues of "access"...which range from having the "right" tech to get into a site to ADA regulations/requirements. Also, preservation is a complicated facet of access and one worth discussing seriously in this course as we think about digital data.

This site is a popular destination for anyone seeking to add a more creative visual aspect to research and/or presentations. Although it uses a wide array of kinetic typography, it is a great way to visually portray field data in a way that attracts a wider audience.

This is an interesting article I stumbled across the other day. It's discussion of changes in technology, methodology, and data and their influence on framing the popularity of music, particularly in regards to race, is really interesting.

Another source for data illustration.

"Products for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering barriers to sharing stories."

This is an interesting case study on how ethnographic methods are being used by arts and cultural groups to help make their case to funders. "There is growing pressure to provide concrete evidence of impact to funders and institutional and civic leaders. And yet, numbers and metrics rarely capture the complex individual transformation and collective social change at the heart of many impactful community-based arts and humanities-based endeavors. Stories and qualitative data more readily meet the challenge but are often viewed as "soft" evidence. How can we reap the valuable content- and context-rich learning that qualitative approaches to assessment afford, while enhancing the credibility of qualitative evidence toward more effective case making?"