Digital Data Analysis, Public Engagement and the Social Life of Methods

Start date: 1 February 2013
End date: 1 July 2013
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Primary investigator: Helen Kennedy
Co-investigators: Dr Giles Moss

Description

People’s web and social media use generates a vast new source of data which, it is suggested, can be analysed for new insights into what people think and feel, how they behave, and about the nature of social networks and relationships.

Digital Data Analysis, Public Engagement and the Social Life of Methods aims to interrogate such bold epistemological claims about what the analysis of digital, social media or ‘big’ data might tell us. It does so by investigating the use of digital data analysis in practice.

Working with three public sector organisations (two city councils and one local museum), the research experiments with different forms of digital data analysis in order to examine how they might help public organisations to know their publics better.

Publications and outputs

Kennedy H, Moss G. 2015. Known or knowing publics? Social media data mining and the question of public agency. Big Data and Society.2(2)

Kennedy H, Moss G, Birchall C, Moshonas S. 2014. Balancing the potential and problems of digital methods through action research: methodological reflections. Information Communication and Society.18(2): 172-186.

Moss G, Kennedy H, Moshonas S, Birchall C. 2015. Knowing your publics: the use of social media analytics in local government. Information Polity.20(4): 287-298