Platforms for Issue Mapping: Demonstrating the Relevance for Participatory Social Research

问题映射提供了一组工具、方法和技术，用于分析Web上的时事。目前，在英国和国际上，围绕这种方法正在出现一个活跃的研究社区，因为近年来有三个问题映射平台上线：Issuecrawler，demoscience.org和映射争议。这些基于网络的平台为在线定位、分析和可视化问题提供了一系列应用程序和指导方针。它们为数字社会研究提供了一种独特的方法，因为它们能够实现“实时”研究的形式：对动态内容的在线分析。问题绘图还需要对社会研究采取参与性办法，因为它将计算技术与社会方法和视觉输出的设计相结合。问题映射平台目前用于领先的社会科学部门的学术研究，以及活跃于问题倡导，设计研究和社会技术的组织。该项目旨在通过使这些不同的用户和问题映射的开发者之间的交流，发展问题映射对数字社会研究的贡献。更具体地说，其目的是确定，促进和沟通问题分析的参与性和实时方法的数字社会研究的发展的贡献。为了确定，促进和阐述在数字社会研究中使用的问题映射平台，该项目将结合联合收割机两种形式：a）举办研讨会，汇集现有和未来的用户和开发商的问题映射，和B）的目标，方法和策略的指导出版物的发展问题映射的社会研究的观众，广泛构思。近年来，在联合王国，牛津大学和兰开斯特大学等地，围绕在线问题映射组织了几次研讨会和方法课程。这些活动主要集中于向研究人员和研究生传授问题摸底技能。在拟议的项目中，将采用讲习班的形式，以自下而上的方式确定社会研究中问题绘图的方法。具体而言，研讨会将产生问题映射，在三个关键方面证明其对参与性社会研究的贡献：研究需求的校准，问题映射中分析能力的重新分配，以及一系列可视化策略的相关性。两个研讨会将汇集用户和开发人员的问题映射与四个不同的能力配置文件：社会研究，创造性计算，问题宣传和视觉设计。这四个能力组的代表的参与对于阐明和阐述问题映射对数字社会研究方法创新的贡献至关重要。在讲习班期间，小组将探讨问题测绘项目中的具体相关问题：问题测绘满足了哪些研究需求？问题映射如何在设备、分析师和社会分析对象之间重新分配分析能力？哪些可视化策略与问题映射相关且有效？这些小组将开发案例研究，这些案例研究将能够为社会研究人员介绍问题映射的数字方法。讲习班将制作具有示范价值的视觉产品。因为这些产出将构成创建两个出版物的基础：一个是为问题摸底的组织用户编写的报告，另一个是关于作为数字社会研究方法的问题摸底的指导性出版物，这两个出版物都将在该示范项目的最后阶段编写。

Issue mapping offers a set of tools, methods, and techniques for the analysis of current affairs on the Web. An active research community is currently emerging around this approach in the UK as well as internationally, as three platforms for issue mapping have come online in recent years: Issuecrawler, demoscience.org and Mapping Controversies. These web-based platforms make available a range of applications and guidelines for the online location, analysis and visualisation of issues. They offer a distinctive approach to digital social research insofar as they enable forms of 'real-time' research: the online analysis of dynamic content. Issue mapping also entails a participatory approach to social research, as it combines computing techniques with social methods and the design of visual outputs. Issue mapping platforms are currently used in both academic research in leading social science departments as well as by organisations active in issue advocacy, design research and social technology. This project seeks to develop the contribution of issue mapping to digital social research, by enabling exchange among these diverse users and developers of issue mapping. More specifically, its aim is to identify, facilitate and communicate the contribution of issue analysis to the development of participatory and real-time methods of digital social research. In order to identify, facilitate and elaborate the use of issue mapping platforms in digital social research, this project will combine two formats: a) the hosting of workshops that bring together existing and future users and developers of issue mapping, and b) the development of instructional publications on the aims, methods and tactics of issue mapping for social research audiences, broadly conceived. Several workshops and methods courses around online issue mapping have been organised in the UK in recent years, among others at the University of Oxford and Lancaster. These events have mostly concentrated on the transfer of issue mapping skills to researchers and post-graduate students. In the proposed project, the workshop format will be used to identify methodologies of issue mapping in social research in a bottom-up way. Specifically, the workshops will produce issue mappings that exemplify its contribution to participatory social research in three key respects: the calibration of research needs, the re-distribution of analytical competencies in issue mapping, and the relevance of a range of visualisation tactics. Two workshops will bring together users and developers of issue mapping with four different competency profiles: social research, creative computing, issue advocacy, and visual design. The participation of representatives of each of these four competency groupings is crucial to explicate and elaborate the contribution of issue mapping to methodological innovation in digital social research. During the workshops small groupings will explore specific related questions in issue mapping projects: what research needs does and can issue mapping fulfil? how does issue mapping re-distribute analytical competencies among devices, analysts and objects of social analysis? What visualisation tactics are relevant and effective for issue mapping? The groups will develop case studies that will be able to serve as an introduction to digital methods of issue mapping for social researchers. The workshops will produce visual outputs with demonstrational value. as these outputs will form the basis for the creation of two publications: an report for organisational users of issue mapping, and an instructional publication on issue mapping as a digital social research method, both to be developed in the last stage of this demonstrator project.