I recently encountered this issue for an article I was writing.  I wanted to use some images I found in various places on the web to illustrate network analysis techniques. I considered these images to be necessary to make my argument. I reasoned that as academics, we need to be able to use whatever evidence is necessary to support our points. We have long accepted the idea that written materials can be quoted, as long as we cite the source and follow some other guidelines. In theory, we should be able to use images in similar ways, but this has remained a challenge.

Depending on the laws of the country in which one is publishing, the use of images/photos in academic works might fall under the principle “Fair Dealings” or “Fair Use.” in very basic terms (and referring to the specific U.S. concept), this means that if my purpose is to comment on, parody, or critique copyrighted material, and the use would be limited and transformative, I do not need to seek permission from the copyright owner. Fair use is a defense against claims of copyright infringement. (There are good overviews of the concept online–I use Stanford University and Columbia University copyright sites)

The International Communication Association recently published a code of best practices for fair use in scholarly research in communication. This best practice document is not a legal safeguard, but outlines some excellent considerations. It is the most comprehensive document available (to my knowledge) on the use of media in scholarly work.

Here are the key points from that document I found helpful in determining that I was using the images fairly. They go further than any other specifications for fair use, but again, they’re based on the U.S. principle of fair use, so these points may not apply in other countries.

1) Previously, it has been assumed that even if use is fair in the classroom, that doesn’t mean it’s fair for scholarly publications. The ICA guidelines contest this idea, noting that fair use is not medium specific. In communication scholarship, fair use principles extend to published works, not just education in the classroom.

“If a use is fair in the course of scholarship, then it is fair in the publication and distribution of that scholarship by any means, including publishing and media distribution, and in the archiving of that scholarship.”

2) Fair use applies to the use of images as much as the use of text, despite common misunderstandings to the contrary. This is an important adjustment to the pre-digital era assumption that multimedia communication forms should be treated differently than textual forms of quoting.

Fair use is in wide and vigorous use today in many professional communities. For example, historians regularly quote both other historians’ writings and primary textual sources; filmmakers and visual artists use, reinterpret, and critique copyrighted material; scholars illustrate cultural commentary with textual, visual, and musical examples. Equally important is the example of commercial news media. Fair use is healthy and vigorous in daily broadcast television news, where references to popular films, classic TV programs, archival images, and popular songs are both prevalent and routinely unlicensed.

These are distinctive and important specifications, helpful in the continuing struggle to extend our interpretation of fair use. We have to begin making similar claims in other venues. Eventually, perhaps, it will become sensible to use the same logic for quoting audio/visual material or quoting written words.

Based on these arguments from the ICA committee on fair use, and my further study of Fair Use principles, I am confident that if I were publishing in a U.S. outlet, I could make a solid argument for using the images without seeking permission. My use was clearly illustrative, which could be considered transformative, as articulated by the ICA guidelines:

Generally speaking, [quoting copyrighted material for illustration] transform[s] the material reproduced by putting it in an entirely new context; thus, a music video clip used to illustrate trends in editing technique or attitudes about race and gender is being employed for a purpose entirely distinct from that of the original, and is typically directed to an entirely distinct audience from that for which it originally was intended.  This is true even in situations where the media object in question is not subjected to specific analysis, criticism, or commentary.

Even so, the area is gray and likely to remain so for many years. As I said, some publishers regularly reproduce graphics under the principle of fair use, while others refuse any use of graphics without copyright license.

At the end of the day, because I was publishing in Denmark, my research and reasoning didn’t apply. Turns out Danish law does not recognize fair use, so copyright permission must be approved in writing for any image I might want to use. This rule applies regardless of where the images come from. So I cut all the images from the article.

Excerpts from: ICA (2010). Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication. Available at: http://centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use/related-materials/codes/code-best-practices-fair-use-scholarly-research-communication.

I’m working on a chapter on Dramaturgy and Digital Experience and I’m working out how to structure the frame for the piece.  I thought it might be useful to brainstorm here, as well as talk about the key question for me, which is: What makes digital experience different from everyday life in the 21st Century?

Frankly, this would have been an easier chapter to write twenty years ago, when performative aspects of digital experience were more novel, more on the screen, and involved more virtuality. Now, of course, the digital is interwoven into everyday life through a range of devices and interfaces.  As Turkle aptly noted back in 1995, what might have been called “life on the screen” has been thoroughly transformed into “life in the screen” (p. 21).   This sentiment is echoed by Deuze, Blank, and Speers (2012), who say in a recent (great) article that we understand and use media in a way that more accurately would be described as ‘in media’ rather than ‘with media.’

Given that everyday life is mediatized and technologically-mediated, the obvious question for this sort of chapter is “what makes digital contexts different?”

One possible way to frame the discussion would be to discuss those things about digital experience that have persisted in a sticky way over the past 20 years.  This would include such things as distributed presence, textual performance (textuality, intertextuality), and the fact that one’s identity and existence is a matter of deliberate choices.

Another way to frame it would be to talk about specific dramaturgical concepts and link these to different digital contexts. The only problem with this approach is that it relies on the use of categories that may or may not fit well any more. Take Goffman as the baseline here. His elaborately detailed discussions of various aspects of performance of self have long served as a solid foundation for a dramaturgical approach.  Does the analogy fit digital contexts? Surely, we could find in any digital context examples of front stage and backstage behaviors, impression management, realigning actions, expressions given versus given off, and so forth.

But “individuals” and “social establishments” are less easily demarcated in networked cultures.  There are many “players” influencing the performance beyond the actual human individuals.  The “stage” may not only be distant from the body of the performer, but may continue the performance without the actor’s presence or knowledge.  Goffman’s specific examples and categories for sensemaking were appropriate for a much different time period in our history. I’m not suggesting they are no longer relevant in mediated settings. However, I think his overall approach is more applicable than his specific terms and categories.  When we think of his larger body of work, embedded in symbolic interactionism and social psychology, certain premises become fundamental to his dramaturgical approach:

1. What we think of as “Self” and “Other” are ongoing negotiations among individuals in specific contexts, which could be examined through the lens of theatre;
2. What might seem a stable entity is a state that is continually achieved through adjustment and realignment of performance;
3. Rules and structures govern these performances;
4. Over time and through various processes of enculturation, actions become habitual, serving as invisible frames governing behaviors, sensemaking, responses, and meaning.

These four premises serve as a fallback when the theatre metaphors seem to break down in considerations of digital experience. In other words, if we can no longer distinguish front stage from backstage in certain mediated contexts, we can use the premises and then modify the specific terms/categories.  Take for example the late 1990s phenomenon of webcam girls, who would display every moment of their days and nights through multiple cameras and microphones (a topic that the brilliant Terri Senft has spent years thinking and talking about).  We could use the terms “front stage” and “backstage” offered by Goffman, perhaps concluding that this example represents a breakdown of front stage/backstage or a ‘backstage solidarity.’ We could speculate, as Goffman did in passing, that a chronic “lowering of barriers” might be “part of an anti-dramaturgical social movement, a cult of confession.” Or we might conclude that the dramaturgical framework doesn’t apply at all.

While all three options are certainly viable paths, it may be more amenable to the data as well as the underlying premises of the approach to conceptualize the situation as a type of performance with a specific set of rules, just not understood or encapsulated in the terminology of front stage or backstage. Approaching the example thus, we can discover context-specific performative rules in play, rather than use pre-determined concepts that don’t apply.

While I think the discussion of traditional dramaturgy terms is useful, it ties the hand of the scholar who needs to think beyond these categories. It also keeps us locked in an ambivalent relationship with Goffman, wondering whether or not the principles outlined in “Presentation of self in everyday life” apply.

A third frame for such a chapter would focus more specifically on issues of identity, as this seems an important undergirding concept in any dramaturgical approach, although this may be just a limited understanding of a dramaturgical approach.  Still, when I consider what makes digital experience so very different from other contexts, I return time and again to the fact that digital contexts provide the means for controlling the presentation of self, enacting embodiment and presence, managing identity-for-others, and playing with different performances in ways not possible (or much less possible) than in physical bodies and contexts.  As a sideline, I also think that these performances are not nearly as controlled or controllable as we like to think and in this way, we are beguiled by the technologies for being.  We are relational beings, achieving what we call the ‘self’ through a constant process of interaction. Despite our “impression management” efforts to control the means by which others ‘see’ us, which presumably gives them information in order to have a certain understanding of us, we can never truly control this process.  We give off (in Goffman’s sense) information that we don’t know about, like misspelling words, breaking the rules or norms because we don’t understand them, or having an unintentional tone or attitude that influences others in ways we’re unaware.  We are essentially relational beings.  Unending strings of interactions influence how we see ourselves, how we think others see us, and how we respond to others’ responses (or lack of responses) to us. Maybe a little R.D. Laing is in order here.  Or a mention of the looking glass theory of self (Charles Cooley).

But more apt, probably, would be Kenneth Gergen, whose book “Saturated Self” remains a strong influence on my comprehension of self and identity in mediated contexts.

The fourth frame might be to follow a timeline of how we’ve shifted our thinking about performance and identity, in relation to certain shifts in technologies and capacities.  Of course, it would be a fairly idiosyncratic timeline (to say the least), since it would be based on trends and shifts that interest me, specifically. Still, it would be interesting to consider a dramaturgical approach within larger historical shifts, such as these:  From virtual reality to mobile and ubiquitous environments.  From text-only contexts to multi-media contexts. From the desire to be something ‘other’ to concerns with creating the best ‘brand’ of ourselves possible.

As with most of my essays, I have no tidy ending. Mostly, I just run out of time and either push ‘publish’ or ‘draft.’  Most likely, because I am in the mode of trying to control my identity as a scholar of merit, I click ‘draft,’ because i still don’t like to offer unfinished product to the world at large.  Ah, the possibilities for a dramaturgical analysis are endless.

…to be continued…..

Part I
Part II
Part III

Part IV here

The study of networks is not just the study of how things are connected. It is a way of rethinking what we identify as the object of analysis. Breaking it down to such a level may seem to oversimplify network analysis, but from a methodological perspective, this actually enables us to build the framework pragmatically from the ground up. Arguably, social media are changing the way we experience the world. What we consider self, structure, and ‘the social’ are far more temporal and ad hoc than fixed. Whether or not this is the case or anything radically new, social media help us see how our research contexts are not pre-existing milieus but an assemblage of elements “constituted through the connections or articulations among elements” (Balsamo, 2011, p. 15). These contexts of flow force social researchers to consider the way we have historically conceptualized the object and phenomenon and challenge us to focus on methods for making sense of constantly shifting globalized terrains of meaning.

When operating within a network perspective, it becomes easier to envision location in relation, or an idea of what it might mean to be “situated.” You can see where you are centered, but you can see how that makes everyone else look.  At its best, this stance facilitates strong reflexivity. Once we move past the goal of description, mapping becomes a way of highlighting certain aspects of a situation, a process that simultaneously hides or obscures other plausible or actual aspects. Every iteration frames the phenomenon, but also shapes our experience of the phenomenon. So while network maps can provide a way of seeing differently, they are also ways of locking in a particular view. This is only really a problem when we lose sight of the frame.

Playing with networks can help reveal ways of seeing otherwise. The key to maintaining internal consistency and contextual integrity is to constantly rebuild and shift the networks so that different elements can be studied and different nodes centered. Of course, this has the benefit of engendering a more robust analysis, but here, the salient point is that it can help identify the way that one’s analysis is privileging certain standpoints. This becomes crucial when we approach the final stages of the project, when we draw conclusions about what we’ve analyzed and build the argument for particular audiences. During this stage, we’ll emphasize particular connections, eliminating other options. Interrogating one’s own decisions, analyzing conclusions as networks in themselves, provides another level of ethicality.

In a very fundamental way, adopting a network perspective forces multiple and always-shifting perspectives on any phenomenon. Rather than reducing the scope, the methods of moving through and analyzing various elements of networks generate more data, more directions, and more layers of meaning. If one can embrace the challenge of dealing with such a messy and potentially uncontrollable process, the outcome can yield accounts of social phenomena that are sensitive to irreducible complexity. Because these emerge as a result of a series of decisions, there will always remain multiple possibilities and paths not taken. This may seem unsatisfactory to those of us trained to believe there are no limits to scientific knowledge, but on the flipside, removes the pressure to attempt to provide ‘the’ answer. Weaving an explanation and justification of one’s decision-making process into any final report adds transparency and credibility, whereby the researcher can identify and therefore help make the rationale more obvious to readers. It is important to emphasize, as does Grebe (2010), that the political and ethical power of our attitude and practice toward social inquiry “have profound ethical and political implications. …An epistemological stance that recognises complexity can inform a critical philosophy” (p. 4).

This essay is not about network analysis in the traditional sense. It is about how to broaden our conceptualization about what counts as “method” in the study of contemporary, that is, heavily networked, social life. I focus attention on selected concepts associated with network analysis approaches to describe a robust practice of qualitative inquiry that incorporates motion, movement, connection, and process.

To conceptualize the benefits of employing a network perspective, I have drawn on many other disciplines and perspectives. In doing so, I build sensibilities that work for me. `I find that experimentation with method is a useful, even essential practice, but not without bounds. Gregory Bateson remarked that “advances in science come from a combination of loose and strict thinking, and this combination is the most precious tool of science” (1972, p. 73). The ability to bounce between these modes of thinking enables flexibility and opens the door to following hunches while continuously requiring a sharpening of our disciplinary logics. Mindful engagement of this dualism creates the intellectual space to explore and glean data outside typical research parameters yet provides a mechanism for measuring this freedom against what remains epistemologically sound practice for social research.

A network perspective, loosened from the bounds of its primary disciplinary trajectories, constitutes a range of techniques and approaches that encourage researchers to move into the flow of culture to find meaning. These need not be tied to a particular theoretical position, but can be used as tools to think with, whether it be through drawing more pictures as a part of the systematic process of analysis or by challenging the very foundations of how we have traditionally conceptualized what we consider the research object. So, while I initially took this essay to be an opportunity to critique the traditions of this approach, I ended up finding new ways of grappling with complexity.

Works Cited

Balsamo, A. (2011). Designing culture: The technological imagination at work. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bateson, G. (1972/1987). Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc.

Grebe, E. (2010). Negativity, difference, and critique: The ethical moment in complexity. In Cilliers, P. & Preiser, R., (Eds). Complexity, difference and identity: An ethical perspective (95–111). Dordrecht: Springer. Available from: http://www.springerlink.com/index/10.1007/978-90-481-9187-1. [Accessed 13.01.2012].

Part I
Part II
Part III here

Moving beyond the discrete to study the space of flows

Consider some of the persistent notions that arise in multiple disciplines over the past few decades: That what we consider an organization is a momentary freezing of flux and transformation (Morgan, 1986), which we can only identify through retrospective sensemaking (Weick, 1969); that space is the crystallization of time (Castells, 1996, p. 411); that the ‘individual,’ far from being a universal concept (e.g., Strathern, 1992), is one that is only understood in terms of relation and interaction (e.g., Blumer, 1969); or that both micro or macro elements of ‘the social,’ such as individuals and institutions, respectively, are nothing but networks (Latour, 1997, 2005). All of these ideas call for reconsideration of what is conceptualized and captured as the object of analysis. Pushing this further, decades of epistemological discussions challenge us to consider whether “object of analysis” is the best conceptual frame for engaging in what Rabinow and Marcus call an “anthropology of the contemporary” (Rabinow, Marcus, Faubion, & Rees, 2008).

Despite our acknowledgment that phenomena and research situations ought to be considered more fluidly, qualitative methods are historically designed for use in physically situated, local, fairly static contexts. As noted by Rees (Rabinow et al., 2008), “anthropologists are increasingly studying timely phenomena with tools developed to study people out of time” (position 10).  It remains easier to focus on the outcomes rather than the processes of interaction. Traditional analytical tools are object oriented—focused on those obdurate qualities of the phenomenon that can be identified, parsed, recorded, displayed for other researchers and scrutinized as discrete units of data.

For me, network perspectives provide tools for shifting from object to flow, or structure to relation. Although many network analysis scholars promote the idea that “the focus of network level analysis is on the properties of the network as a whole” (Brandes & Earlbach, 2005, p. 6), most of the practice itself depends on an orientation toward processes of connecting, interacting, and relating. This everyday stance can allow the analyst to focus on the intensely relational social actions that create these flows, or on the flows themselves. I review below some of these practices.

Visual and nonlinear sensemaking

The first step for me is to push past an embedded textual centrism to engage the phenomenon as a moving, sensory body. This involves at minimum using more visual models for sensemaking. Using visualization techniques at a very simple level, by drawing lines between ideas, promotes sensibilities not inherent in textual analysis. Some of this gets accomplished coincidentally when we write notes that include such things as circles around related elements, spaces between elements that illustrate the spatial characteristics of the phenomenon, or connecting lines to denote relationships among people, places, things, or ideas. But because it is not a deliberate practice, it is for the most part not systematized or scrutinized as a method. If we apply McLuhan’s argument that the use of any medium extends a particular sense and simultaneously amputates other senses to our own analytic tendencies, the value of attending to this traditional mode of research practice becomes clear. Writing by hand, typing on a laptop, drawing, listening; each of these media privilege certain senses (Chandler, 1992).  The more media we utilize to make sense of a phenomenon, the more we can potentially identify and disrupt our predispositions and limitations in categorizing discursive patterns, people, contextual features, or social structures. This point is certainly not specific to studies of contemporary internet-mediated culture.  Indeed, it is a concern made more relevant as our everyday practices of research have shifted from analog to digital, whereby our modes of sensemaking are more locked into ephemeral, non physical, cut and paste, linear, text driven media. It is fruitful to consider what might be lost and (re)gained by broadening our scope for acceptable and expected everyday practice.

Concept mapping is one way to think about this process.  As a graphical representation of the relationships among concepts, it enables the researcher to see an overview of a knowledge network, add new concepts or ideas, and focus on the relationships and connections among concepts.

Figure 14. Screenshot from a concept map showing the key features of the process of concept mapping. (Novak and Canas, p. 1)

Used systematically and iteratively as a form of qualitative analysis, concept mapping can sponsor less linear or text-centric sensemaking. The practice functions at both a direct and meta level,[1] but we can also say that it represents the practice of learning connected to so-called “digital natives:” Grazing, deep diving, and feedback loops (Palfrey and Gasser, 2008, p. 241).

At the direct level of analysis, this might involve creating a range of concept maps by hand and then rearranging elements. This practice is not uncommon and there are many techniques, each unique to the individual researcher’s preferences. Yet as a tool for data analysis, it remains sidelined as a precursor to more guided forms of textual analysis. Developing and sticking to a systematic and consistent practice will yield a much richer outcome. For me, the physical act of drawing, connecting, and rearranging is essential. Cutting apart these maps and moving the scraps of paper around on the table physically helps me reconsider relationships and dimensions of experience.[2] In looking at visual representations of the complexity of personal connections, I get a different sensibility than when I review transcripts of interviews with individuals who have stepped out of this complexity to engage in a one-one conversation with me, a researcher, who guides the conversation in the directions I think are important, even as I design an open-ended set of questions and seek to be purely inductive. I understand a situation differently if I can visually see direct and indirect lines of influence, or look at how nodes of power and isolation remain static over time or shift in meaningful ways. This is possible to see in text also, but visual renderings add a difference that arguably makes a difference in the analysis.

As mentioned earlier, multiple, iterative renderings are crucial to the process, to avoid over determination or reductionist mappings.  I can also take any particular element and “deep dive” into it, exploring it more fully and following new paths. Taking time to draw new renderings throughout this process transforms the informal practice into a systematic method. While I can certainly experience the chaos of technological saturation and multphrenia at a visceral level and then think about it, meaning takes different shapes when I see multiple possible networks played out from different center nodes, over different time periods, or through different perspectives. This is not to suggest that I am gaining a more complete picture. It is rather a stronger sense of the complexity as I witness different patterns or connections beyond my own ability to observe. My comprehension is also more fully realized when I do not erase versions of my interpretive maps, but review the way my conceptualizations have shifted over time.

From outside to inside

At another level, I find network maps useful in conceptually shifting the researcher’s relationship to the data from outside to inside. Words in sentences create logics strung together in syntax.  Images allow one to look at elements in nonverbal or spatial terms. Simplified such, a network map provides a snapshot of salient relational characteristics and patterns. Three dimensional or animated maps add further complexity. Zooming in or out and moving around to focus on various curiosities takes me into the pattern. Of course, sophisticated data visualizations are not always available to the qualitative researcher whose inventory of skillsets likely does not include mathematical modeling and software rendering. Sitting at my desk with paper, pencil, and a laptop, the perspectival shift is more a matter of empathy and imagination.  To work around my technological limitations in creating complex network maps of my own data, I systematically search for visualizations that represent the concepts.

At this level, it matters less where you go than what you do with what you find along the way. If we can become attuned to the multiplicity of experience and the infinite possibilities for identifying and analyzing cultural practice, the analytical outcome can become a discussion point rather than an attempted explanation of the whole. Once this perspective is embraced, it becomes possible to move differently (and more freely) to conduct complex analyses of the social. Notably, while this stance implies an epistemological shift of sorts, this is not necessarily warranted.  The techniques may be a supplement to other forms of analysis.

From individuals to networks

Actor network theorists ask us to consider that contemporary culture requires a shift from actor to network. Individuals are defined by their networks: “An entity is entirely defined by the open-ended lists in the databases” (Latour, et al, 2012, p. 3).  From this perspective, anything we might call an individual is simply a temporary constitution of attributes. Likewise, what we might call a social structure is an assemblage of common, and possibly persistent, sets of attributes. To make sense of these assemblages, it is not necessary to explain the whole or conduct a holistic study of a bounded field. Rather, it is possible to start anywhere and follow the data — attributes, profiles, persons, memes, or other salient units of information. In some ways, it doesn’t matter where one begins because one will always find only parts, as these are much greater than what we might describe as ‘the whole.

From ‘a priori’ to ‘stumbled upon’ categories and boundaries

This idea provides a sensible approach in what seems to be more and more complex research situations. As every context is interwoven with and into incomprehensible and ever changing information networks, it is unnecessary to identify boundaries and categories in an a priori fashion. In a provocative recent study, Latour and his colleagues (2012) provide multiple examples to demonstrate how it is possible to allow the relevant dynamics to emerge as one surfs these networks: “Instead of trying to simulate and predict the social orders, we wish to acknowledge the limitations of the simulation approach for collective systems and prefer letting the agents produce a dynamics and collect the traces that their actions leave as they unfold so as to produce a rich data set” (Latour, et al., p. 13).

This parallels findings in mathematics and physics that demonstrate that complex systems can be understood by focusing on parts and interactions among elements, starting from almost any point or perspective in the network. Patterns emerge, despite seeming chaos or randomness (Buchanan, 2002, p. 185). Considering the experience of digital navigation through endless informational pathways, the research challenge is therefore not to consider how to narrow the choices in order to comprehend the whole but to reconsider the notion of ‘the whole’ altogether.  Take for example the way we automatically draw boundaries around the object of inquiry based on our taken for granted understanding of how the individual and the social are linked together as part to whole. Our choice about where to begin often emerges from either end of this dynamic.

A Facebook friend network, for instance, is commonly determined by centering an individual and reaching out to find all his or her friends.  A study of Facebook users might also start at the other end of the spectrum, by defining the larger social structures to which individuals belong (youth, hate groups, fans of X or Y, and so forth) and then constructing datasets from the networks that emerge from these interest nodes

Likewise, although an online community may be determined by official membership, it is often determined by assumptions about larger structures, such as ethnicity, age, nationality, or gender.  It might be delineated by types of participation, which could be operationalized in such ways as contributor, author, commenter, or lurker. Alternately, one could define the community on the basis of levels of participation, from core (heavy) to tertiary (occasional) participants. It can also be defined by types of content produced by members.

The decision to draw definitional boundaries around the research object prior to its study is rarely random and the rationale is often pragmatic. But what are the underlying epistemological assumptions? Is there something essential about the whole?  Is it inevitable that individual elements, put together in some way, will comprise a structure? What if we can no longer take systems theory for granted as the way the world works?  What if, as Latour (2012) and his colleagues suggest, the whole is always less than the parts?  Again, the difficult shift for me (or anyone steeped in epistemologies that link individuals to structures, who seeks to identify cultural patterns through the systematic analysis of discourse produced among pre-defined groupings of individuals in order to create explanatory or thickly descriptive accounts), is how to radically reconsider the notion of ‘the whole’ at the level of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. If focus on process, association, connection and movement is the goal, it requires shifting from matters of fact to matters of concern (Latour, 2004, p. 9). The importance lies in the questions that emerge through the research practice of moving, as the individual or the social no longer exists from this perspective and need no longer be used as the unifying or bounding feature of a research project.

Multiplicity in meaning

Guided in many ways by the work of George Marcus (1998), ethnographers have been challenged to move away from extremely localized study. As discourses move more globally, the notion of multiple locations (multi-sited ethnography) gives way to multiple sites of situated meaning and ongoing processes of what Rodriguez calls “culturing” (2002). Appadurai (1996) proposes five ‘scapes’ as a way to consider streams or flows that are always at play in constructing cultural formations. These give practical dimensions to the analytical product of one’s movement with and through various data streams and networks. Using the idea of a photographer or painter wanting to capture a ‘landscape,’ we begin to build a sense that depending on innumerable variables, the picture will change.  It might be, as we can see in Claude Monet’s Haystacks, the time of year, our situatedness, time of day, or the medium for capturing the moment. This notion is useful as an analytic tool for obvious reasons, in that each iteration causes the researcher to reconceptualize, perhaps radically, the general description of the context and phenomenon, as well as the specific variables influencing the cultural snapshot. Mapping ‘scapes’ helps us envision cultural activity composed of various dimensions of global flow. Each type of scape can focus on a particular type of information flow, a particular person, a particular moment, and so forth. Almost any word could precede the suffix ‘scape’ to brainstorm types of maps to experiment with. Appadurai (1996) describes ethnoscapes, mediascapes, financescapes, technoscapes, and ideoscapes, but there’s no need to be limited to these, as they are in this usage simply tools for thinking about multiple sites of meaning through networks and mapping.

In sum, a network perspective can prompt a methodological and perhaps epistemological approach that better resonates with the study of what is described as cultures of flow. To oversimplify my own approach at this point in time, this involves more visual rendering: Recording and treating as data more of the conceptual and experimental mappings that might otherwise be dismissed as brainstorming ideas, sorting data, or narrowing the scope of the study. It is not just a process that involves mapping, however. It involves a sensitivity to movement and connection, both in the phenomenon and in the researcher’s relationship to this flow.  The goal is to embody the perspective of moving with and through the data, rather than standing outside it as if it can be observed, captured, isolated, and scrutinized outside the flow.

Part I
Part II here
Part III

Network Sensibilities as Generative Tool

Most directly, network analysis strategies promote visual mapping of key elements (nodes), connections between them, and the overall structure of the system. This type of visualization can be used in generative ways throughout a study.  By generative, I include the processes of generating data, generating organizational strategies for one’s data, generating multiple analytic coding schemes or categories, and generating links between levels such as local/global, relational/structural, and so forth. While the focus may be primarily directed toward the phenomenon, it is equally beneficial to use network sensibilities to map one’s own conceptual and epistemological standpoints.

Mapping notable moments and connections

When I consider the origin of the idea of mapping, the cartographer comes to mind. In a practical sense, one primary goal of mapping is to identify where one is situated as well as where one has been, in order to direct or guide other travelers unfamiliar with the territory.  When applied to cultural rather than physical terrain, this mapping might produce a visual image of primary or notable landmarks, such as key points of intersection among cultural members, clusters or groupings such as those defined by kinship, age, gender, interests, and key moments, such as rites of passage, rituals, or significant shifts prompted by unusual breaks in patterns. In fieldwork-driven research contexts, this mapping is often produced as a supplement to textual/descriptive fieldnotes. Here, I suggest it can be used to generate many layers of what might be construed as data, each laid over previous or alternate iterations to illustrate different orientations, generate different objects for analysis, identify different patterns, and demonstrate analytical shifts over time.

Identifying the elements influencing a situation

Adele Clarke provides a compelling way to map situations visually, an analytical practice that combines elements of grounded theory, actor network theory, and traditional sociological mapping techniques. The key to this type of “situational analysis” is to use one’s field data to generate more data for analysis. The process is to generate various kinds of maps: Situational maps (figure 1) consider the major human, non-human, discursive, and other elements influencing a situation, as framed by those in the situation as well as the analyst. These maps are intended to provoke analyses of relations among them (Clarke, 2003, p. 559). Relational maps (figures 2 and 3) take each element in turn as the center of the network, considering the nature of the relationship between this element and other elements that have been specified in the situation. Although tedious, this process of shifting the networks in a meticulous way can trigger important analytical breakthroughs, particularly patterns or elements that are obscure or nonobvious to those in the situation (p. 569). Social worlds/arenas maps, “lay out all the collective actors and the arena(s) of commitment within which they engage” the situation (p. 559). Position maps (figure 4) “lay out the major positions taken and not taken, in the data vis a vis particular discursive axes of variation and difference, concern, and controversy” (p. 560).

Figure 1. Abstract situational map to illustrate the messy process of laying out various pertinent elements of a situation (Clarke 2003, p. 562)

Figures 2 and 3. Relational maps centering two different situational elements and drawing the relevant network of relations.  (Clarke, 2005, pp. 104 and 105, respectively)

Figure 4. Positional map focusing on positions taken by various stakeholders, situated by positive or negative in relation to the axes described: Importance of clinical efficiency in nursing and stated importance of emotion work in nursing care. (Clarke, 2005, p. 130)

By creating this range of maps of the situation, the researcher focuses in serial fashion on particular elements of the situation (a person, an issue, an event, a time period, a theme, a technology or medium, etc.) or notable patterns in larger assemblages.  Through this process of analysis, more complicated understandings of the situation emerge. This process cannot help but be deeply iterative with each pass through the data.

Adding complexity

To draw a map is to lay out elements in relation, so as to find or create a pattern that is sensible for a particular purpose or audience. Setting aside the practical aspects of mapping as the process of producing a verisimilitude and simplification of the ‘landscape’ so that others can find their way without getting lost, one can begin to note the more creative aspects of mapping as a process of adding complexity to the situation, generating additional data for research. This might seem to fly in the face of the goal of narrowing one’s research scope to a sensible level, but highlights a crucial element of qualitative inquiry: seeking depth and complexity in order to reach thick description. Geertz classically described these multiple layers of meaning “winks upon winks.” Playing with different possible mappings can help pull this complexity to the surface.

Trying out different maps of the situation can help identify certain general patterns or curiosities that might not otherwise be noticed. This acknowledges the challenge that despite one’s goal of identifying a discrete object for inquiry, the object will always be entangled in larger patterns and flows of meaning that operate both at the surface, observable levels and also at less visible, deep structure levels. When adding the premise of swiftly shifting or ad hoc structures, the utility of situational network mapping becomes more meaningful.

As a large-scale example, one could look at how this might operate when trying to study social media in relation to the Japanese earthquake in early 2011. This event had monumental physical consequences and sparked a global series of overlapping and intermingled reactions. In such a huge complex situation it would be impossible to identify simple cause/effect sequences or to explain as a whole. Indeed, everyone I talk with about this crisis has a different interpretation of what happened and what it means. Quelling the urge to describe or explain the entire situation, we can begin with the baseline question of “how did people make sense of the Japanese earthquake through social media?” We can start to generate data by tracking interesting data paths and mapping various elements, beginning at the structural level, the individual level, or anywhere between. Take a massive dataset such as the number of Tweets and Retweets during the hours following the quake. Creating an animated visualization of the initial response to the disaster by individuals across the globe, as Twitter did (figure 5) gives one layer of information for further analysis.

Figure 5. Screenshot from Twitter’s visualization of “worldwide retweets of Tweets originating in Japan for one hour after the earthquake. Senders’ original Tweets are shown in red; Tweets retweeted by their followers in the hour after the event are displayed in green” (Twitter, 2011)

Zooming in on particular tweets, one could draw more detailed mappings based on the content of the messages.  Or one could compare the timeline of this response to similar animations of responses to other recent acute events, such as the Queensland floods of late 2010 or the Egypt protests of early 2011.

One could alternately begin at the molecular level of the message, following any unit of information as it moves and morphs (or withers and fades). Take for example a YouTube video entitled “Japan,” passed around a small network (figure 6 and 7). If the concept of building complexity is taken seriously, this soon generates multiple types of maps and possible directions for further analysis, not of the video itself but of the assemblages it helps constitute, along with other units of cultural information (e.g., figures 8 and 9).

Figure 6 and 7. Screenshot and close-up from Youtube video entitled “Japan,” which was posted on a Facebook page shortly after the Japanese earthquake of early 2011. (Aikisystema, 2011)

Figure 8. Network map identifying English titled videos recommended alongside the “Japan” video on the date the video was first noticed by Annette, connected to second (later) situational mapping of relevant influences on her understanding of the video in relation to the Japanese earthquakes. (author’s research notes)    Figure 9. Generative mapping of actual trends in news about Japan following and possibly caused by the earthquake and the ripple effect of informational waves. Depiction of shift from specific event to cultural memes. Original video circled in red. (author’s research notes)

As Clarke notes, it is vital to keep this process of mapping consciously messy, to avoid premature closure (2004, p. 95). This may be seem to be just a fancy way of saying that open-ended brainstorming is an important aspect of inquiry, but it goes beyond this. The act of mapping adds complexity that will swiftly engulf the initial thing we thought we wanted to study, thereby removing emphasis from a precise object of analysis. This is identified as a strength, as it then becomes easier to focus on the research question and the data rather than pre-determined theoretical or empirical objects.

Visualizing patterns

We most often encounter network maps as the final product of research that focuses on describing large-scale situations. This can be obvious, as in figure 10, where the map looks like what we commonly think of as a network map:

Figure 10. Network map (and close up) overviewing news discourse on the events in North Africa and the Middle East during the first half of 2011. Focus on five thematic clusters in five major Swedish newspapers. Image shows initial rough analysis only. (Lindgren, 2011)

They can be subtle or almost invisible, when they don’t look like network maps but are based on network thinking, as we see in political commentator Glenn Beck’s chalkboard drawings of the Egypt situation in one of his news programs (figure 11):

Figure 11. Screenshot (and close-up) from online video clip of the Glenn Beck television program on Fox News, January 31, 2011. Discussion during this part of the program focuses on explanations of what influenced the riots in Egypt. Cartoon faces represent the nature of each country’s relationship with the United States. (MacNicol, 2011)

They can be animated and seemingly comprehensive, which is increasingly the case with the rising popularity of data visualization. This timeline (Figure 12) produced by The Guardian, for example, charts major information streams throughout the Arab Spring, emphasizing times, types, and sources of information.

Figure 12. Screenshot from “The Path of Protest” interactive timeline developed by the Guardian to trace key events surrounding what has become termed “Arab Spring.” (Blight, Pulham, & Torpey, 2012)

Figure 13 illustrates another visually arresting image that strives to make an argument about influence and Tweeting during the early 2011 Egypt protests.

Figure 13. Twitter map of pro-democracy movement in Egypt during early 2011. Image intended to illustrate freedom of expression made possible by Twitter. Red is Arabic speaking, Blue is English. Nodes are placed in proximity with those they influence, although no operational definition of ‘influence’ or explanation of methodology is provided by author (Boguta, 2011)

All these examples represent the (somewhat) final product of a process of using network analysis to think about, analyze, and represent a phenomenon. These final images do not capture how network analysis works in actuality.[1] We might better identify this by doing our own mapping of maps presented across multiple outlets. Each production will present a different argument about a similar phenomenon. Even a cursory glimpse of the way various stakeholders described or explained the Egypt protests shows the complexity of possibilities. Daily, if we were paying attention to the situation, we could see a wide range of visualizations, each presenting a partial depiction, as measured by innumerable variables depending on who is doing the mapping and for what purpose.  While some focused on speed and diffusion of information, others focused on relative position and power of individuals and/or key stakeholders.  Still others traced the geo-located origins of messages and their subsequent travel, mapping the epicenter or apparent impact of tidal waves of information. This list could go on and on. Taken together and over time, these mappings illuminate the power of thinking about situations through a network lens. They also form networks of meaning of their own, not only by virtue of a viewer’s experience of them, but also more directly when and if they influence each others’ re-renderings over time. We can see that while the focus is ostensibly on an object (social media or protests in the Arab world), the astonishing outcome is that the parts are much more significant and meaningful than the whole, which from an epistemological perspective helps us see that the whole is not just elusive but nonexistent and only ever understood through gross oversimplification or generalization.

I use these large-scale examples because the images are compelling.  The scope is too large to be of value in the type of close level qualitative inquiry advocated by Clarke in her discussions of situational analysis.  At a smaller scale, the significance of this type of analysis is vital to building complexity into what might at first pass seem a fairly simple context.

Also, in all of these examples the generative power I discuss might be found using other methods, but visualizations serve at least two functions: First, the activity of producing multiple renderings of the context surrounding a phenomenon destabilizes both the context and the phenomenon, an essential step toward shifting to more complex accounts of contemporary culture. Second, multiple layers of visualizations can provide a systematic trace of one’s movement through various analytical categories and interpretations. Whether or not one uses visually-oriented methods for thinking, the process, when woven into the findings as well as the analysis, highlights rather than hides the multiplicity of directions possible, offering one’s outcomes as a deliberate choice among many for what constitutes the research object.

Maybe it’s the pretty pictures generated by big data.

Maybe it’s the impulse to unfocus the analytic gaze from location to locomotion.

Whatever. The question that prompted me to start thinking about network analysis went something like this:  “Could network analysis offer something that another method or lens couldn’t?”  My immediate response was to answer simply: “No.”  As a tool for identifying elements of a system, network analysis works well. As a method for understanding meaning in context, it has always been inadequate, at best. From an interpretive or poststructuralist ethnographic standpoint, network analysis oversimplifies the complexity of social life. Since its inception, network analysis has focused on the presence of connections between people and the structural dimensions of relations rather than the content or meaning of these relationships as they are enacted and constantly negotiated in everyday communicative interactions. Because it seems so completely contrary to the premises of symbolic interactionism, social constructionism, and interpretive sociology, network analysis, especially as it has been constructed under the label of Social Network Analysis (SNA), I do not include it in my own toolbox of methods.

Despite my efforts to avoid thinking about network analysis, I have been drawn to many of the visual sensibilities it offers in the study of heavily mediatized social contexts. Social media environments are constructed and maintained almost exclusively by information transmission and exchange among networks of individuals.  When divorced from positivist research goals, the visualizations emerging from network analysis techniques prompt a range of sensemaking not available through the analysis of text.  When the tools are separated from the disciplinary parameters for which they were developed, they offer a beguiling method of extending certain approaches, such as grounded theory or ethnography, and specifying other approaches, such as actor network theory or practice theory.

I give this personal background to clarify that I came to this topic reluctantly.  It represents the result of my effort to reconcile my (educated) dismissal of this method with my simultaneous (pragmatic) adoption of many techniques that could be considered part of the general practice of network analysis. To be fair, this essay may not actually be about network analysis, although I leave it to the reader to make this final determination.  In what follows, I review some of the generative qualities of visual mapping techniques. I discuss the importance of moving away from objects in the study of internet-or technology saturated contexts. I describe the reflexive power of shifting our perspective constantly and radically.  Everything in this essay, then, is something that in theory, if not practice, constitutes a fundamental element of network analysis.

Early Network Analysis

I understand network analysis from my background as an organizational communication scholar. From this discipline, network analysis is a mezzo-level lens, traditionally used as a tool for identifying and mapping communication patterns or structures of relations among individuals. Early network analysis emerged in workplace settings as a way of trying to assess odd variations in productivity that could not be explained through typical measures. Once management thought to look at informal communication among workers, they started to find answers. Network analysis helped identify these informal structures and relations among workers. Early on, the goal was to quell these informal networks, as these were seen to be irrelevant or counterproductive to the efficient functioning of the organization.  Later, these same analyses were used not to strangle but to harness and utilize the valuable resources that emerged and played out in these informal networks of interaction among employees.

From Network Analysis to Network Sensibilities

One of the key elements of network analysis is that it maps individuals as points in space but then draws a link between people to identify some sort of relationship.  The traditional goal of network analysis is to identify and analyze the structure of relationships in groups.  While this has modified somewhat, the unit of analysis remains the pattern of relationships between people, rather than the individuals themselves or the meaning embedded in the individual lines connecting people together.

For researchers working within various poststructuralist or postmodern perspectives, network analysis doesn’t fit well, if at all. Even so, if we look more closely at the component parts (elements or focal points) of a network analysis approach, we begin to notice sensibilities that resonate strongly with the complexity of networked cultures.  Let me offer a brief sketch of what is implied and invoked in a network approach, which takes us beyond the specific tool or method of network analysis.

Even the earliest network studies focused attention on the idea that interaction creates social structures. The premises of network analysis are grounded in general systems theory, whereby structures–whether biological, organizational, or social—are best understood as the result of ongoing and evolving processes of interrelation among various system elements.  The concept of network implies emergent (rather than static) structures that shift along with the people whose connections construct these webs of significance. Capturing an image of a network is rather like taking a snapshot of an ever-moving phenomenon, transforming this flow into a somewhat arbitrary object. This aspect of network analysis is not generally highlighted in research reports, because the reader/viewer typically only sees the final capture, not the iterative process of creating it from multiple possibilities. In theory, if not practice, then, network approaches focus on action; connections rather than the products of connections.

This process-oriented view is reflected in the way that a network researcher might create, view, recenter, move, or animate network analysis maps throughout the course of a study.  Although in many cases, the goal is to identify a structure (if not the structure) with some aim of explaining the general context, the process is much more fluid as the method is actualized.  When taking apart the practice, the method becomes one that provides information about: the general shape of a network (in terms of actual or relational size, scope, and range); the position of various nodes (often individual persons), connection between these nodes (generally on/off, although this can also be strength of connection, if variables are combined), the relationship between nodes, to the extent that these can be identified by attributes of a line, and movement (over time or by shifting the focal point of the mapping).  Notably, all of these aspects of a network approach are profoundly enhanced by animation technologies, which may account for the growing popularity of this method; it remains a compelling way to try to encapsulate large complex structures of flow in visually comprehensible ways.

When separated from the traditional goals of SNA, which can seem limiting for scholars who embrace a less formulaic way of exploring cultural phenomena, a more general network approach includes a natural inclination toward exploring culture-in-formation: Human and/or non-humans interacting and connecting within temporal frameworks to co-construct patterns and structures of meaning, whether ad hoc and temporary or habitual and highly structured over time. Particularly for complex ecologies characterized by convergence, globalization, multiphrenic concepts of identity, and constant shifts in local and global connections, network analysis tools comprise powerful tools for thinking and can disrupt research methods that are either too rigid or too vague, allowing one to incorporate more performativity, engagement, and movement with and through data. Indeed, in a quite literal sense, network analysis prompts the involvement of more senses in the inquiry process and activates different cognitive centers of the brain.

I haven’t finished Part II yet (now I have, along with Part III and Part IV), where I explore the ways social media researchers (working within qualitative, ethnographic approaches) can use network analysis sensibilities to enhance the analysis of complex mediated social contexts without adopting in whole the premises of Social Network Analysis: First, as a form of generative mapping; second, as a mode of shifting analytical focus from object to motion; and third, as an analytical catalyst for reflexivity.  To note, I think there are some fabulous scholars doing this already. Case in point: Adele Clark, whose book Situational Analysis is an excellent combination of grounded theory, symbolic interactionism, and actor network theory.

Abstract:

In this article, I briefly touch on some of the ethical dilemmas associated with protecting participants in internet-based social contexts and I discuss the concept of fabrication in relation to current trends that signal a continuing or even growing conservatism in qualitative inquiry. I then offer an introductory framework for ethically sensible premises and practices for creative fabrication in data analysis and representation and provide suggestions for shifting methodological practice to better protect privacy in situations where vulnerability or potential harm is possible or not easily determined. This article is particularly targeted toward the study of sensitive topics or situations where personhood, privacy, vulnerability, and harm may be ambiguous.

‘Fabrication’ may seem an odd choice to readers familiar with the way this term has been commonly defined. Particularly in scientific communities in the United States, fabrication is considered a form of research misconduct, often connected with its sister term ‘falsification.’ I am choosing the term deliberately to interrogate and destabilize the mistaken and often unspoken assumption that invention necessarily represents a lack of integrity and likewise, that ‘good’ research includes no trace of fabrication. Using the term also helps to highlight the constructive aspects associated with interpretation, a crucial element and strength of qualitative inquiry. My hope in this article is to provide a much-needed framework for qualitative researchers who struggle with the ethical dilemma of adequately anonymizing information while providing accounts that present rich descriptions and important details about the context or people.

With the Timeline feature, Facebook is promoting itself not just as a contemporary tool we choose for this moment in time, but one we will naturally rely on throughout our lives to trace, document, edit, filter, and pass along our personal histories. What a clever rhetorical frame.

It’s not just a clever frame, but a slightly frightening one, if we don’t pay attention to the ways this company could weave a dense web of control over its 750 million users. If Timeline was simply streamlining the practice of dragging out family photo albums for sharing, that would be one thing. But it’s far more interwoven into everyday practice. Potentially, Facebook has the power to not just facilitate what we do, but define what should be the way we document the narratives and critical moments of our lives.

I can’t help but begin to consider how much my next 20 years (or more) of social activity and memory-making could be shaped by this interface, which is owned and controlled externally and connected to sophisticated target marketing. I’m beginning to think about the concept of “Corporate Colonization” much more concretely.

I’m wondering when they’ll start charging money. After we get totally dependent, I’m sure.

I laughed, knowing that in part this image is correct to chide us for fussing about such a minor thing.  At the same time, this graphic risks oversimplifying and burying some key issues that don’t get addressed as much as the actual changes.

The way our technologies evolve now, in the present-tense first world, affects significantly how they are taken up or conceptualized later.  Facebook is in many ways bigger than itself.  It claims to be a social network service, yet in practice, resembles a public service (like telephone lines, operators, and yellow pages).  It functions on a massive scale (750 million users).  It controls the way we receive information (using obscured filters).

To this picture, add commercialization and personalized marketing. Then add the fact that each of us users has invested a lot of time and energy to build strong friendship networks and tweak this interface to suit our needs.  We’re unwilling to give that up and start again; in many ways, inertia keeps us locked into this particular service.

We may be complaining about seemingly silly things. But the function of complaining goes beyond the simple goal of getting a chronological order back into one’s news feed (which is just as banal as it sounds).  Our protests help push back against a corporate model that anticipates we will either unthinkingly accept infrastructures that don’t work well or we will notice, shrug our shoulders, and accept these things as inevitable.

When 750 million people use a personal networking service like Facebook and it becomes the predominant nexus and template for social activity, globally, it becomes more than just a free convenience.  And it affects many more people than current users.  Thinking ten years down the road instead of for the moment, there seems to be more than just inconvenience at stake when we don’t know what’s operating under the surface. There’s a taken for granted infrastructure in the making.  If we’re not careful, we become  the frogs in the frying pan, who don’t notice the change in temperature all around us until it’s too late.