Interface Methods: Renegotiating Relations between Digital Social Research, STS and Sociology
Interface Methods: Renegotiating Relations between Digital Social Research, STS and Sociology
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DOI：
10.1111/1467-954x.12314
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发表时间：
2016-02
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
N. Marres;C. Gerlitz
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
N. Marres;C. Gerlitz
本文介绍了一种在数字社会研究中开发方法的独特方法，称为“界面方法”。我们首先讨论数字媒体、科学和技术社会研究(STS)和社会学之间的各种方法论融合。一些作者提出，一方面，社会学和STS的概念，另一方面，数字媒体的本体论之间存在显著的重叠。其他人则强调了数字媒体中的突出方法与STS和社会学的方法之间的显著差异。本文主张第三种方法，即(A)强调数字方法的动态性和相对不确定性，(B)肯定多种方法论传统在数字设备和研究中交叉。我们认为，这两种情况使得数字社会研究中的方法论有了一种独特的方法--将方法思考为“接口方法”--论文以两种不同的方式将这种方法联系在一起。首先，我们展示了在线数据工具或‘数字分析’的激增如何为社会学、STS和数字研究的交叉点上的方法开发提供独特的批判性和创造性参与的机会。其次，我们讨论了一个数字研究项目，在该项目中，我们调查了一种特定的‘界面方法’，即共现分析。在这项数字先导研究中，我们以一种批判性和创造性的方式实施了这一方法，以在Twitter上分析和可视化气候变化领域的“问题动态”。我们根据我们的主要目标对该项目进行评估，该目标是通过试验实施和结合各种方法传统来测试修改方法的可能性。最后，我们讨论了“界面方法”发展的一个主要障碍：数字媒体具有特殊的数量动态，这似乎与社会学和STS的一些方法论承诺背道而驰。为了解决这个问题，我们主张在数字社会研究中采用一种方法论的方法，这种方法肯定了它与媒介中流行的研究方法的不适应。
This paper introduces a distinctive approach to methods development in digital social research called ‘interface methods’. We begin by discussing various methodological confluences between digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology. Some authors have posited significant overlap between, on the one hand, sociological and STS concepts, and on the other hand, the ontologies of digital media. Others have emphasized the significant differences between prominent methods built into digital media and those of STS and sociology. This paper advocates a third approach, one that (a) highlights the dynamism and relative under-determinacy of digital methods, and (b) affirms that multiple methodological traditions intersect in digital devices and research. We argue that these two circumstances enable a distinctive approach to methodology in digital social research – thinking methods as ‘interface methods’ – and the paper contextualizes this approach in two different ways. First, we show how the proliferation of online data tools or ‘digital analytics’ opens up distinctive opportunities for critical and creative engagement with methods development at the intersection of sociology, STS and digital research. Second, we discuss a digital research project in which we investigated a specific ‘interface method’, namely co-occurrence analysis. In this digital pilot study we implemented this method in a critical and creative way to analyse and visualize ‘issue dynamics’ in the area of climate change on Twitter. We evaluate this project in the light of our principal objective, which was to test the possibilities for the modification of methods through experimental implementation and interfacing of various methodological traditions. To conclude, we discuss a major obstacle to the development of ‘interface methods’: digital media are marked by particular quantitative dynamics that seem adverse to some of the methodological commitments of sociology and STS. To address this, we argue in favour of a methodological approach in digital social research that affirms its maladjustment to the research methods that are prevalent in the medium.