Reporting on IR16: The Association of Internet Researchers conference in Phoenix, AZ

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Between October 21 and 24, and with generous funding provided by GSU’s Center for Instructional Effectiveness (CIE), I had the great pleasure of presenting my current research at IR16, the conference of the Association of Internet Researchers in Phoenix, Arizona. This annual conference is one of the most prestigious opportunities for Internet researchers to connect, collaborate, and discuss current issues regarding digital communication. Further, while the focus lies on the Internet, social media, and big data, the conference is very interdisciplinary in scope as it brings together researchers from various disciplines, not only from the fields of computer and information sciences but also from areas such as communication, literature, sociology, political science, and cultural studies.

The pre-conference day was all about workshops, and I attended various meetings from the “Digital Methods in Internet Research Workshop” segment, hosted by the research team from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. During the workshop I learned more about big data research methods and how to treat big datasets analytically. One of the tools that Prof. Axel Bruns, director of the research lab, introduced to attendees is called DMI-TCAT, developed by the Digital Methods Initiative located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The program is used for real-time social media data collection purposes. It is mostly geared towards quantitative analysis but qualitative approaches are also possible.

One of my favorite presentation from the conference was given by Helen Kennedy, Professor of Digital Society at the Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield (UK). Her talk was based on questions of how we make sense of data visualizations. As it turns out, data visualizations (graphs, histograms, both static and interactive) are usually evaluated on their efficiency value. However, most often, human beings understand data visualization through the way they feel. Prof. Kennedy is project director for the Seeing Data – Initiative, which is a research group in the UK that has been conducting studies on the particular dynamics that are at play when “ordinary” and professional people make sense of visualized data. I can certainly see the benefit of addressing the effectiveness of a visualization through the kinds of feelings that it invokes in the viewer, and I encourage all of you to check out their website by clicking on the hyperlink above.

Another great presentation was given by Dr. Robert W. Gehl from the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. His talk focused on the recent developments of alternative social media platforms. As we all know, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram pretty much control the social media market. However, when it comes to questions of meaning-making, deliberation, and collaboration, these big social media platforms only offer limited features. Not only that, the big platforms also often overshadow the fact that there are a whole host of smaller, more specialized social media services available on the Internet. Dr. Gehl and his team have, therefore, put together an archive of alternative social media platforms, which includes information on both current and discontinued social media. The list, which is updated frequently, is comprised of the kinds of platforms that have attempted or are currently attempting to move beyond the restrictions imposed by the big boys such as Facebook and Twitter. It is definitely worth it to check out the archive.

 

Know thy audience – What it means to speak at a TEDx event

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Over the course of the summer I had the great pleasure of speaking at a local TEDx conference in Vicenza, Italy. The theme of the conference was “Planting the Seeds” and the day consisted of 16 talks by speakers from various disciplines including agriculture, architecture, design, education, history, science, and technology. It was a truly marvelous event. It took place in the oldest, still standing roofed Renaissance theater, the Teatro Olimpico. The event was not only available as a live-stream online, but the team of organizers also set up an additional live-streaming location not far away from the theater.

In my talk, I focused a lot on the research I am currently doing for my dissertation, in which I look at emerging practices of civic engagement on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In particular, I related the use of social media during the large scale protest events around the turn of the decade such as Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring to anti-corporate discourses that have been popping up frequently on Twitter over the course of the last couple of years.

I am very happy about the talk I have given. However, developing that talk was easier said than done, and it really reminds me of the importance of audience awareness which I frequently emphasize to my students who have taken the classes I teach at Georgia State. The first thing to note is that a TEDx conference, despite featuring academic researchers as speakers, doesn’t really compare to a traditional academic conference. This is because of two, related reasons: for one, the people attending those conferences by and large aren’t academics. They come from all walks of life. That means that the talk needs to be tailored to their expectations, and this usually means to wrap the topic of a talk into a personal story. While academic audiences at conferences prefer presentation content that solely focuses on research findings and results, TEDx audiences enjoy the story aspect of a talk because then the content becomes more relatable. Another crucial point to consider when it comes to preparing a TEDx talk, is that TEDx talks are usually between 8 to 12 minutes, and to make sure that nobody goes over their allotted time, a monitor in front of the speaker shows a countdown. So on the one hand, you’re constrained by the allotted time, and on the other you mustn’t neglect the story part in your talk. And I have to say, preparing my own talk was easier said than done.

Luckily, I had the help of a TEDx speaker coach who worked with me on those aspects. And I cannot deny that it took some time to create a draft that was compatible with the format. The first draft I completed, for example, was roughly 17 minutes long. Way too long, and it didn’t actually include a story. And so it took some time really not only to trim it down so that the talk would meet the required time, which for me was 12 minutes, but also to find a compelling narrative that would function as a thread for the talk.

Overall, this has been a truly marvelous experience for me, not only because I was able to share what I’m working on with a broader audience, but also because it taught me a thing or two about public speaking.

I strongly encourage everybody to get in touch with a TEDx team in your area. In fact, Atlanta has a number of TEDx organizations like TEDxAtlanta or TEDxPeachtree that are always eager to find volunteers who believe in the TED motto: ideas worth spreading. But you actually don’t have to look so far. In fact, Georgia State University has its own TEDx team as well.