Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

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2. An Introduction to Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research

   • Sebastian Kubitschko, Anne Kaun

   Pages 1-12

3. Materiality

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-16

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   2. Engaging (Past) Participants: The Case of radicalprintshops.org

      • Jess Baines

      Pages 17-35

   3. A Materialist Media Ecological Approach to Studying Urban Media in/of Place

      • Erin Despard

      Pages 37-58

   4. Socio-spatial Approaches for Media and Communication Research

      • Segah Sak

      Pages 59-74

4. Technology

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 75-79

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   2. Neither Black Nor Box: Ways of Knowing Algorithms

      • Taina Bucher

      Pages 81-98

   3. Sketching Bitcoin: Empirical Research of Digital Affordances

      • Pablo R. Velasco

      Pages 99-122

   4. Beyond Blobology: Using Psychophysiological Interaction Analyses to Investigate the Neural Basis of Human Communication Phenomena

      • Richard Huskey

      Pages 123-138

   5. As We Should Think? Lifelogging as a Re-emerging Method

      • Alberto Frigo

      Pages 139-159

5. Experience

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 161-165

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   2. Visual Ethnography and the City: On the Dead Ends of Reflexivity and Gentrification

      • Emily LaDue

      Pages 167-187

   3. Exploring Inclusive Ethnography as a Methodology to Account for Multiple Experiences

      • Paola Sartoretto

      Pages 189-205

   4. Interviewing Against the Odds

      • Neha Kumar

      Pages 207-220

6. Visualization

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 221-225

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   2. Ways of Seeing Data: Toward a Critical Literacy for Data Visualizations as Research Objects and Research Devices

      • Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru, Stefania Milan, Paolo Ciuccarelli

      Pages 227-251

   3. Urban Sensing: Potential and Limitations of Social Network Analysis and Data Visualization as Research Methods in Urban Studies

      • Luca Simeone, Paolo Patelli

      Pages 253-272

   4. Mapping Topics in International Climate Negotiations: A Computer-Assisted Semantic Network Approach

      • Nicolas Baya-Laffite, Jean-Philippe Cointet

      Pages 273-291

   5. ‘Creative’ and Participatory Visual Approaches in Audience Research

      • Katharina Lobinger

      Pages 293-309

This collection reflects the need for suitable methods to answer emerging questions that result from the ever-changing media environment. As media technologies and infrastructures become inseparably interwoven with social constellations, scholars from varying disciplines increasingly investigate their characteristics, functioning, relevance and impact – facing new methodological challenges as well as opportunities. Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research engages with the substantial need to rethink established methods to research acute changes in the media environment. The book gathers chapters dedicated to the multifacetedness and liveliness of emerging methods – from lifelogging and ethnography to digital methods and visualization – while embedding them in the rich history of interdisciplinary empirical research. Innovation here is a call for widening and rethinking research methods to stimulate a sophisticated debate on and exploration of contemporary methodological approaches for scholars at various levels of academic life. Accompanied by introductory sections of prominent scholars, the majority of empirical studies gathered in this volume are accomplished through early-career scholars who strive to advance cutting-edge and in parts even provocative approaches for the study of media and communication. The book's four sections on Materiality, Technology, Experience and Visualization are introduced by Saskia Sassen, Noortje Marres, Sarah Pink and Lev Manovich.

• media and communication studies
• research methods
• empirical research
• media technologies and infrastructures
• contemporary media environments
• changing media landscape
• cultural studies
• design
• science and technology studies
• Innovative
• analysis
• information
• qualitative methods
• quantitative methods
• digital methods
• ethnography
• visualization
• technology
• software
• algorithm

“This book breathes fresh air onto established research methods, as well as introducing some new ones. It is an excellent resource for opening up discussion with our students about pushing methodological boundaries. I’m sure many of us will draw on it liberally as we teach and think about the important issue of how to do media and communications research now and in the future.” (Helen Kennedy, University of Sheffield, UK)

“Informative and inviting, this book opens a new window full of cutting-edge innovations and, more important, critical perspectives to think about methodological breakthroughs in digital media research. I can’t wait to use this book in my graduate seminars.” (Jack Linchuan Qiu, Ph.D. Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

“Across the sprawling and diverse domain of media and communication research, digital methods have emerged and evolved alongside the digitisation of communication at all scales. Atthe same time, new advances and hybrid practices in qualitative and creative sociocultural research more broadly have occurred across the humanities and social sciences. In this vibrant, multidisciplinary collection, an international cohort of established and emerging authors model, explore and interrogate the cutting edge of these shifts.” (Jean Burgess, QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology) 

• University of Bremen (ZeMKI), Bremen, Germany

  Sebastian Kubitschko

• Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden

  Anne Kaun

Sebastian Kubitschko is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bremen’s Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, Germany. The main focus of his research is on hacker cultures, politics and democratic constellations. Sebastian holds degrees from Goldsmiths, University of London, UK (PhD), the University of Melbourne, Australia (MA) and the Free University of Berlin, Germany (BA).



Anne Kaun is an associate professor in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University, Sweden. Her research is concerned with media and political activism and the role of technology for political participation from a historical perspective. Anne holds degrees from Örebro University and Södertörn University, Sweden (PhD) and the University of Leipzig, Germany (MA).

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