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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Over the last decade, images have become a key feature of digital culture; at the same time, they have made a mark on a wide range of research practices.
Visual Methods for Digital Research is the first textbook to bring the fields of visual methods and digital research together. Presenting visual methods for digital and participatory research, the book covers both the application of existing digital methods for image research and new visual methodologies developed specifically for digital research. It encompasses various approaches to studying digital images, including the distant reading of image collections, the close reading of visual vernaculars of social media platforms, and participatory research with visual materials. Offering a theoretical framework illustrated with hands-on techniques, Sabine Niederer and Gabriele Colombo provide compelling examples for studying online images through visual and digital means, and discuss critical data practices such as data feminism and digital methods for social and cultural research.
This textbook is an accessible and invaluable guide for students and researchers of digital humanities, social sciences, information and communication design, critical data visualization and digital visual culture.
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Seitenzahl: 288
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Figures
Preface
Research considerations
Outline of chapters
How to use this book
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
1. Research with Images: An Introduction
Introduction
Understanding digital images (in contrast to analogue)
Images by and for machines
Networked images
The multiplicity of digital images
Compiling collections of images
Source- or account-based collections
Expert-curated collections
Query-based collections
Collections with keyword (or hashtag) snowballing
Image-based querying
Conclusion
Notes
2. Distant Images: Reading Large Collections
Introduction
Zooming out: distance as a vantage point
Looking at images together: display formats
Image colour maps: grouping images by formal similarity
Image clusters: grouping images by content with computer vision
Image timelines: displaying images by time
Image networks: grouping images by digital features
Ethical considerations for displaying images in visual research
Conclusion
3. Networked Images: Platform Image Analysis
Introduction
Networked content analysis as a digital method
Single-platform visual analysis: studying multiple issues on a single platform
Studying problematic information on Instagram
Cross-cultural image analysis: comparing one issue across languages
Cross-platform image analysis: studying platforms’ visual vernaculars
Visual vernaculars of climate change: image stacks
Visual vernaculars of forest fires: an image grid
Conclusion
Notes
4. Critical Images: Exposing Inequalities with Visual Research
Introduction
Algorithm bias
Studying image bias: the case of pregnancy online
Successful
visuals: stock photography spreading across platforms
Studying the uneven visibility of social media images
Critical visual research in different contexts
Conclusion
Notes
5. Participatory Images: Talking Back to Maps
Introduction
Knowledge in the making
Matters of care
Data feminism
Digital and participatory social research and the role of (feminist) visualization
Participatory images: opening up digital research to public participation with visualizations
Displaying online images for collective speculation
Linking online images to personal stories: from data visualizations to visual artefacts for public participation
Working with participant-produced images: giving back the data
Conclusion
Notes
6. Machine Images: Generative Visual AI for Research
Introduction
What’s the prompt for this? On prompt engineering
Stressing the machine: testing AI capabilities with remix prompts
Prompt optimization and commodification: prompt guides, prompt tutorials, and prompting as a (commercial) service
From natural language to machine language: structured, dynamic, negative, and weighted prompts
Prompts as queries: from prompt engineering to prompt design
Ambiguous prompting for visual bias research
Prompting and counter-prompting for bias research
Evocative prompting
Provocative prompting for content moderation research
Comparative reverse-engineered prompting for machine critique and trend research
Abstract prompting for public participatory settings
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion: Considering Visual Methods for Digital Research
No visual research without a (socially relevant) research question
Online images are networked
Folder of images: looking at images en groupe (while still paying attention to the single image)
Visual formats are not innocent and are context-specific
Data visualization as a way in, not out
What is missing from the folder?
Why visual methods for digital research, now?
Final comments
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Preface
0.1
Esercizio n.7 / Déjà vu
. Caterina Rossato, 2014.
Chapter 1
1.1 Still from
Grosse Fatigue
by Camille Henrot (2013).
1.2 Still from
Grosse Fatigue
by Camille Henrot (2013).
1.3 Rosa Menkman (2010). A Vernacular of File Formats, Glitched BMP (left) and Glitc...
1.4 Modified screenshots of Twitter and Instagram posts, annotated to highlight the ...
1.5 Penelope Umbrico (2013), Sunset Portraits from 13,243,857 Sunset Pictures on Fli...
1.6 Images from the ‘Reblogs or context is the new content’ project, b...
Chapter 2
2.1 A photo of the artwork
24 Hrs in Photos
, by Erik Kessels, as presented at...
2.2 Images posted with #parisagreement on Instagram before and after Donald Trump an...
2.3 Composite images from the ‘NATURPRADI’ project.
2.4 A ranked image timeline showing the top five Google Image results per year for t...
2.5 A bipartite network of the distribution of posted images across Facebook Reactio...
Chapter 3
3.1 Screenshot of a tweet by Arnold Schwarzenegger, annotated to show how content is...
3.2 Twenty most-liked posts per hashtag shared around the 2019 Dutch provincial elec...
3.3 Classification of the top fifty Instagram posts (receiving the most interactions...
3.4 Google Image results for the query [god] in various languages and Google local d...
3.5 Image stacks to study platform visual vernaculars for the query [climate change]...
3.6 Top ten images per platform with English-language queries related to Amazon fire...
3.7 What does a campus look like? Image stacks for the same collection of images (to...
Chapter 4
4.1 The installation
Gazeplots
by Coralie Vogelaar (2017), as presented at th...
4.2 Image search results for ‘professional hair for work’ (left) and ...
4.3 Probing gender bias in the Google translation algorithm (Bano, 2018; recreated b...
4.4 Overview of the top ten Google Image Search results for [pregnant OR pregnancy] ...
4.5 Top ten most used words in the titles of the photos of the Getty Images Lean In ...
4.6 Top five most liked images per day (2 to 9 September 2015) on Instagram with the...
4.7 Media scholar Marloes Geboers, surrounded by the visualization by Gabriele Colom...
4.8 Forensic Architecture (2015), multiple images and reconstructed bomb clouds are ...
Chapter 5
5.1 Workshop of participatory map-making from the ‘Urban Belonging’ pr...
5.2 Process of the design of composite images and their collective interpretation in...
5.3 Annotated tableaux in Porto from the ‘DEPT’ project. Source: Ricci...
5.4 Workshop materials as part of the ‘Urban Belonging’ project.
Chapter 6
6.1 Generated visuals (with Midjourney) with the prompt: ‘Donald Trump fallin...
6.2 AI-generated visuals (with Midjourney) of the Pope wearing a puffer jacket, post...
6.3 Images with the prompt ‘Old donald trump behind the bars in a jail, news ...
6.4 Milivoje Nikolić (1904–?), whisperer and actor, in the prompt box,...
6.5 Donald Trump as the baby from the Nevermind album cover; Freddie Mercury eating ...
6.6 Screenshots from text-to-image websites invite the prompt to be detailed and spe...
6.7 Universal negative prompt lists suggested by Stable Diffusion to improve contras...
6.8 The consistent output depicting people gardening generated by Stable Diffusion w...
6.9 Stable Diffusion-generated visuals for the prompts ‘CEO’ (left) an...
6.10 Generated visuals for the prompt ‘biodiversity’ from different vis...
6.11 World map composed of cut-outs of animals extracted from visuals generated by Mi...
6.12 Catalogue of filters (excerpt), generated with AI by Carlo De Gaetano for the ...
6.13 The filters are used to overlay black-and-white images.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
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Visual Methods for Digital Research
An Introduction
Sabine Niederer and Gabriele Colombo
polity
Copyright Page
Copyright © Sabine Niederer and Gabriele Colombo 2024
The right of Sabine Niederer and Gabriele Colombo to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2024 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4254-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4255-0 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023951948
by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Figures
0.1Esercizio n.7 / Déjà vu. Caterina Rossato, 2014
1.1 Still from Grosse Fatigue by Camille Henrot (2013). Image credit: Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue (still), 2013. Video (colour, sound), 13 min. © ADAGP Camille Henrot. Image courtesy of the artist, Silex Films and kamel mennour, Paris/London
1.2 Still from Grosse Fatigue by Camille Henrot (2013). Image credit: Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue (still), 2013. Video (colour, sound), 13 min. © ADAGP Camille Henrot. Image courtesy of the artist, Silex Films and kamel mennour, Paris/London
1.3 Rosa Menkman (2010). A Vernacular of File Formats, Glitched BMP (left) and Glitched Gif (right), Selfportrait
1.4 Modified screenshots of Twitter and Instagram posts, annotated to highlight the opportunities the interface presents to users to network their content
1.5 Penelope Umbrico (2013), Sunset Portraits from 13,243,857 Sunset Pictures on Flickr on 10/08/13
1.6 Images from the ‘Reblogs or context is the new content’ project, by designer-researcher Silvio Lorusso (2015)
2.1 A photo of the artwork 24 Hrs in Photos, by Erik Kessels, as presented at FOAM Amsterdam in 2012. Photo credit: Erik Kessels
2.2 Images posted with #parisagreement on Instagram before and after Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on 1 June 2017. Source: authors
2.3 Composite images from the ‘NATURPRADI’ project. Source: authors
2.4 A ranked image timeline showing the top five Google Image results per year for the query ‘climate change’. Source: Pearce & De Gaetano (2021), Creative Commons
2.5 A bipartite network of the distribution of posted images across Facebook Reactions. Source: Geboers et al. (2020)
3.1 Screenshot of a tweet by Arnold Schwarzenegger, annotated to show how content is networked by users and by the platform itself. Source: Schwarzenegger (2017), annotated and image redrawn by authors
3.2 Twenty most-liked posts per hashtag shared around the 2019 Dutch provincial elections. Source: Colombo & De Gaetano (2020)
3.3 Classification of the top fifty Instagram posts (receiving the most interactions) in the political candidates’ name spaces and issues spaces. Date range: 1 January 2020 – 20 April 2020. Source: Niederer & Colombo (2023), Creative Commons
3.4 Google Image results for the query [god] in various languages and Google local domains. Source: Ochigame & Ye (2021). Image credit: Kai Ye and Rodrigo Ochigame, with design by micah epstein
3.5 Image stacks to study platform visual vernaculars for the query [climate change]. Source: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/MakingClimateVisible. Image courtesy of Beatrice Gobbo
3.6 Top ten images per platform with English-language queries related to Amazon fires. Source: Colombo et al. (2023)
3.7 What does a campus look like? Image stacks for the same collection of images (top) obtained by querying [campus] on Google Image Search. The same collection is visualized as a layered image (centre) and as an assemblage (bottom). Visualizations by Federica Bardelli
4.1 The installation Gazeplots by Coralie Vogelaar (2017), as presented at the Impakt Festival in 2018. Photo credit: Coralie Vogelaar
4.2 Image search results for ‘professional hair for work’ and ‘unprofessional hair for work’ on Google Image Search. Source: Twitter profile, no longer active.
4.3 Probing gender bias in the Google translation algorithm (Bano, 2018). Image recreated by the authors
4.4 Overview of the top ten Google Image Search results for [pregnant OR pregnancy], and the top ten images for [unwanted pregnancy]. Source: Bogers et al. (2020).
4.5 Top ten most used words in the titles of the photos of the Getty Images Lean In Collection, and top ten most used full titles for the photos. Source: https://digitalmethods.net/Dmi/WinterSchool2016CriticalGenealogyGettyImagesLeanIn
4.6 Top five most liked images per day (2 to 9 September 2015) on Instagram with the hashtags #aylan, #kiyiyavuraninsanlik and #humanitywashedashore. Image credit: Gabriele Colombo, also used in Geboers (2019)
4.7 Media scholar Marloes Geboers, surrounded by the visualization by Gabriele Colombo, discusses the study for a documentary, ‘Kitten or Refugee?’, by Tina Farifteh, broadcast by Dutch public broadcaster VPRO
4.8 Forensic Architecture (2015), multiple images and reconstructed bomb clouds are arranged within a 3D model of Rafah, Gaza. Source: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-bombing-of-rafah
5.1 Workshop of participatory map-making from the ‘Urban Belonging’ project. Source: Burgos-Thorsen (2023)
5.2 Process of the design of composite images and their collective interpretation in the ‘NATURPRADI’ project. Source: Niederer and Colombo (2019)
5.3 Annotated tableaux in Porto from the ‘DEPT’ project. Source: Ricci et al. (2021), Creative Commons
5.4 Workshop materials as part of the ‘Urban belonging’ project. Source: https://visualmethodologies.org/the-urban-belonging-project. See also: www.urbanbelonging.org
6.1 Generated visuals (with Midjourney) with the prompt: ‘Donald Trump falling over while getting arrested. Fibonacci Spiral. News footage.’ Source: https://archive.md/sVol4
6.2 AI-generated visuals (with Midjourney) of the Pope wearing a puffer jacket, posted on r/midjourney on Reddit. Source: https://archive.md/jqPG8
6.3 Images with the prompt ‘Old donald trump behind the bars in a jail, news photo’, with a ‘GettyImages’ watermark overlaid automatically by the text-to-image tool. Source: Lexica, The Stable Diffusion search engine. https://lexica.art/prompt/d38438c4-8275-4492-9ef3-5b3bcff32bcd
6.4 Milivoje Nikolić (1904–?), whisperer and actor, in the prompt box, National Theatre of the Danube Banovina, 1939. Source: WikimediaCommons
6.5 Donald Trump as the baby from the Nevermind album cover: https://twitter.com/weirddalle/status/1537059462543982592; Freddie Mercury eating ramen inside a washing machine: https://archive.md/MtvgN
6.6 Screenshots from text-to-image websites invite the prompt to be detailed and specific. Sources: https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2 and https://stable-diffusion-art.com/prompt-guide
6.7 Universal negative prompt lists suggested by Stable Diffusion to improve contrast and exposition and avoid common issues that might appear in the generated visual. Source: Stable Diffusion Art (2023a)
6.8 The consistent output depicting people gardening generated by Stable Diffusion when prompted with ‘people engaging in sustainable activities’. Source: Cattaneo et al. (2023)
6.9 Stable Diffusion-generated visuals for the prompts ‘CEO’ and ‘social worker’, juxtaposed in the interface of Stable Diffusion Bias Explorer
6.10 Generated visuals for the prompt ‘biodiversity’ from different visual generative models. Source: Colombo et al. (2023)
6.11 World map composed of cut-outs of animals extracted from visuals generated by Midjourney for the prompt ‘biodiversity in’ + [name of the continent]. Source: Colombo et al. (2023)
6.12 Catalogue of filters (excerpt), generated with AI by Carlo De Gaetano for the ‘After us the deluge’ project
6.13 The filters are used to overlay black-and-white images. Source: Carlo De Gaetano for the ‘After us the deluge’ project
Preface
In an age where images pervade our digital culture and shape societal discussions, the need to examine them critically has never been greater. The scholarship on visual methodologies has traditionally focused on studying images – their production, meaning, circulation, and reception – and their role as research tools. This book, Visual Methods for Digital Research, builds on the field of visual methodologies while focusing on the specificity of digital visual culture. It offers methods and approaches tailored for the researcher and student interested in contemporary digital visual culture. Each chapter starts with a vignette (an artwork or a picture depicting a particular research setting) that sets the tone for the themes discussed in the chapter.
For this preface, it seems only fitting to start with the cover of the book you hold in your hands. The cover image shows Esercizio n.7 / Déjà vu by artist Caterina Rossato: an assemblage of cut-out landscapes, neatly arranged one behind the other, is held together by two poster clips. The images combined create new and non-existent landscapes that yet seem familiar. Where are these mountains again? Didn’t I swim in that cold lake? By layering and stacking, the landscapes become a collection of memories of mountains, canyons, forests, lakes, and buildings illuminated by rays of sunlight.
The work not only shows a collection of images, reassembled in this case to trigger the sense of déjà vu and play with false memories of landscapes visited. It also is a beautiful example of – to put it very simply – ‘doing things’ with images. In this book, we discuss methods for studying digital images that work with images by assembling them, re-displaying them, overlaying them, annotating them, talking to them, and so on. The cover image speaks to us as visual digital methods similarly involve creative ways to use images as material. Art and the realm of design are important sites of visual research, where – just as in visual digital research – the results often raise new questions. That is the excitement and inspiration we find in this field and the reason we draw in examples from the arts when discussing visual digital research.
In our research and teaching, we have increasingly turned our attention to the study of mostly visual materials. In 2019, we started to describe and publish some of the approaches for doing research with and about digital images with the international journal Diseña. In the issue dedicated to design methods, we outlined visual methodologies for collaborative research, cross-platform analysis, and public participation (Niederer & Colombo, 2019). A few years later, in the same journal, we curated a special issue dedicated to visual methods for online images (Colombo & Niederer, 2021), collecting a variety of research perspectives for approaching digital visual culture with visual methods.
This book is intended as a guide for researchers and students who share our interest in visual methods and may consider using them in their own digital research. It offers a range of approaches for interfacing online images that seek to understand, reanimate, republish, and change perspectives on our digital visual culture. It offers practical advice on how to use visual research methods effectively and provides examples of how (digital) visual research methods have been used in different research contexts. It is our hope that this book will inspire other researchers and students to consider the potential of visual research methods for their own practice.
Research considerations
While the book’s primary focus is on studying images in groups, it does not overlook the importance of the single image. Drawing inspiration from canonical works on the subject, it advocates for a methodology that combines both distant and close reading. This dialectical approach echoes W. J. T. Mitchell’s concept of the ‘pictorial turn’, highlighting how each image serves as a microcosm of cultural meaning that requires deep analysis. The theme of social and cultural relevance runs throughout the book. Most projects mentioned in the chapters lean heavily into issue mapping (Marres, 2015b) and controversy mapping, underscoring the societal impact and implications of the images under study.
0.1Esercizio n.7 / Déjà vu. Caterina Rossato, 2014.
Positioned firmly within the humanities, this book bridges the gap between theory and practice. It takes into account seminal works in visual communications and visual methodologies, incorporating perspectives from scholars such as Aiello and Parry, and Rose. The book serves as both a theoretical primer and a practical guide, offering a comprehensive framework enriched by compelling examples and hands-on techniques. Whether you’re a student or an experienced researcher, this book aims to make the – sometimes complex – field of digital visual research more accessible.
This book does not offer chapters dedicated to the ethics of digital research or the critical assessment of the problematic hegemonic position of a handful of online platforms. Nonetheless, ethical considerations, particularly concerning whose images are studied and how, underpin the works presented in this book. Data feminism and the ethics of studying images that were not explicitly created for research purposes are discussed in various case studies. We encourage the readers of this book to think critically about the visual data they engage with and how to do so responsibly.
Another element that stands firmly behind the scenes consists of the ways of working: the practical aspects of doing digital research – which often takes place in group work, sprints, and collaborations. The book intentionally avoids extensive lists of tools, focusing instead on the conceptual underpinnings that can be applied across a variety of platforms and technologies. Rather than one-on-one How-to’s, we presented research protocols more like recipes, offering the reader a foundation upon which to improvise and innovate, and which they can adapt to their own research contexts.
In selecting the case studies, artworks, and scholarly references featured in this book, we have made a deliberate choice to draw upon our own academic and experiential backgrounds, with roots in the humanities and within a European setting of applied sciences (in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Milan, Italy, specifically). Our research contexts are also interwoven with highly collaborative practices of design as well as artistic and cultural research. As we present these examples, we aim to offer readers a window into the research settings that have informed our own work, paying testament to the people and settings that have shaped our perspectives and understanding of the field.
Then again, this book does not exist in a vacuum. It is in conversation with a vast and growing body of work in digital and visual methods, data feminism, and visual communications. If you have interests in these fields, this book serves as both an entry point and, hopefully, a catalyst for deeper exploration.
Outline of chapters
Chapter 1 discusses theorizations of the digital image. Through the critical analysis of art and design projects, we review different characterizations of digital images, including their materiality, networked nature, multiplicity, and circulation. We end the chapter with a review of different strategies for compiling collections of images.
In chapter 2, we detail various displaying formats and present strategies for distant-reading large collections of images. The chapter is dedicated to analytical techniques for studying (medium- or large-sized) image sets with a distant-reading approach (as opposed to close-reading smaller groups of images). The distant-reading approach can be used to identify recurring visual formats and themes within a collection of images, or to study the circulation and modification of images across online spaces.
Online images may also be studied in relation to their networked nature. Moving towards the network of images means moving outside the demarcated image that will now be studied alongside its digital context. That images are networked means they need to be considered ‘not as solitary objects, but as a part of a network of other images, users, and platforms’ (Niederer, 2018, p. 47). Chapter 3 introduces methods for close-reading small sets of images, with a sensitivity towards their networked nature and the role of online platforms in ranking, formatting, and co-producing (visual) content.
The question of which images are deemed more visible than others online, thanks to the work of social media platforms and search engines in labelling and prioritizing content, is further explored in chapter 4. Here, we address the topic of inequalities in (visual) data sets, presenting techniques for studying bias in the visual representation of various issues online. We discuss successful images and present (visual) research methods aimed at understanding how and why specific images spread better than others.
Attending carefully to the missing (or unsuccessful) images in a folder is also at the centre of chapter 5, where we present participatory visual methods. Here, we turn the attention to what is missing from a collection of images and how to use participatory techniques to address this gap. Drawing from recent (data) feminist theories, which ask researchers to pay attention to societal power imbalances exacerbated by data-driven technology, we present visual strategies for participatory work. In this chapter, we ask which roles visual formats can play in designing participation in and with the digital, describing research settings and situations where participants are asked to talk back to the data.
Finally, we return to the entanglement of machines and humans in our visual culture, asking what kind of research one can do with machine-generated images. Chapter 6 presents ways to do visual research with AI, using text-to-image models to explore machine biases and content moderation policies, or to co-design elicitation images for participatory practices that invite the collective imagination of social issues.
How to use this book
This book gathers a wide range of approaches for conducting research with and on digital images. It is also an attempt to shape and bring together in one place several years of research and experimentation on visual methods for digital research. The book is characterized by its diversity of methods, materials, and approaches. This means there are overlaps between the various techniques presented in different chapters, and the book is not exclusively organized around specific platforms or types of images. Indeed, the book deals with various image types, from social media images, search engine results, and AI-generated images to digital images explicitly captured in participatory workshops. Some chapters focus on a particular methodological approach, while others delve into the study of ‘certain types’ of images. For example, chapters 2 and 3 address specific methodological approaches (i.e., distant and close reading of collections of images), while chapters 4 and 6 explore particular types of images.
In addition, a central theme in this book is the connection between the study of visual materials and the production of visual materials as a research tool: the different chapters explore both research on digital images and research using images. Despite the diversity of content, we have included links between chapters to create interactions between various methods, approaches, and materials. Readers could build their research project by mixing and matching the techniques presented in the chapters.
Depending on your needs, there are at least two main ways to use this book. If you are new to digital visual research and want to get an overview of available approaches and methods, the entire book will provide you with a (of course, incomplete) mapping of the field. Start with chapter 1, which introduces the specificity of digital images as a starting point for defining a methodological approach suited to studying them. If you already have a collection of images to study or display, each chapter also stands on its own to provide a different starting point for studying or using a collection of images. In case you do not yet have a collection of images, chapter 1 offers a comprehensive overview of techniques for creating one.
But, in the end, a book comes to life through its readers. If, by using this book, you find inspiration to incorporate existing, or even design new, methods for digital visual research, then the book will have achieved its purpose.
Acknowledgements
The visual, digital, and participatory research presented in this book is by no means a solitary endeavour. All of the projects we present here were undertaken with colleagues, students, or both. The Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam is where we started collaborating during one of its early summer schools. Its rhythm of annual summer and winter schools, in which researchers from all over the world get together for week-long research projects, has offered a lively context for methodological innovation. Through its long-standing collaboration with Density Design at the Politecnico di Milano, it has incorporated a high standard in information design and data visualization as part of the research process. We thank the Digital Methods Initiative and Density Design for providing the opportunity and context to apply, develop, test, and improve many visual methods for digital research presented in this book. While the Digital Methods Initiative is definitely a place we consider part of our academic family, it is not our only research context.
Sabine developed her teaching and research interests at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, from working as a cultural producer with Geert Lovink at the Institute of Network Cultures to eventually becoming a professor. Deep appreciation goes out to the Dean and close colleagues at the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries, and the ARIAS platform for artistic research in Amsterdam, for their support and collaboration. Special thanks to the Visual Methodologies Collective, its past fellows and its current members – Janine Armin, Federica Bardelli, Carlo De Gaetano, Femke Dekker, Andy Dockett, Maarten Groen, Mariana Fernández Mora, Natalia Sánchez Querubín, Nienke Scholts, and Nick Verouden – and close collaborators Laura Cull, Patricia de Vries and Tamara Witschge, for cultivating an inspiring research environment of creativity, critical inquiry, and care.
For Gabriele, the Density Design research lab at the Department of Design in Politecnico di Milano has been the environment where a Ph.D. research project offered him the space to explore digital visual methods for the first time. Thanks to all the researchers and designers who contributed to this exceptional space throughout the years (Elena Aversa, Matteo Azzi, Andrea Benedetti, Agata Brilli, Ángeles Briones, Giorgio Caviglia, Daniele Ciminieri, Paolo Ciuccarelli, Tommaso Elli, Alessandra Facchin, Beatrice Gobbo, Michele Invernizzi, Michele Mauri, Azzurra Pini, and Giorgio Uboldi). Thank you to Donato Ricci, who (first in Milano and later in Paris) pushed towards studying digital images as a promising research line in the design field. And a special thanks to Federica Bardelli and Carlo De Gaetano for sharing an interest in breaking images and a fruitful academic and artistic collaboration dating back over ten years.
We would also like to thank Renato Bernasconi of Diseña for offering us the platform to further our collaboration around the study of images, which resulted in a special issue and many fruitful discussions about image research that laid the groundwork for this book.
The Public Data Lab, a collaborative context for digital researchers from various universities across Europe, illustrates the many international collaborations that have informed this book. We especially would like to thank Jonathan W. Y. Gray and Liliana Bounegru for exploring with us methods for visual analysis that inform some of the research presented in this book.
The various projects discussed in the chapters result from many collaborative efforts.
Chapter 1
In previous form, parts of this chapter have been published in G. Colombo, L. Bounegru, and J. Gray (2023). Visual models for social media image analysis: groupings, engagement, trends, and rankings. International Journal of Communication, 17(0), 28.
Chapter 2
Parts of this chapter have previously been published in S. Niederer (2018). Networked Images: Visual Methodologies for the Digital Age. Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
The study of #parisagreement presented in chapter 2 is part of a long-standing collaboration with Warren Pearce and Suay Ozkulay at Sheffield University, and Carlo De Gaetano of the Visual Methodologies Collective. Some of the methods for distant reading (such as the image colour maps and image clusters technique) were initially co-tested, refined, and documented for a module on Digital Methods for Internet Studies: Concepts, Devices and Data, convened by Liliana Bounegru and Jonathan W. Y. Gray at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. The techniques for visual (participatory) analysis developed during the ‘NATURPRADI’ project (presented in chapters 2 and 5) are the results of collaboration with Donato Ricci, Agata Brilli, and Axel Meunier at Médialab – Sciences Po in Paris. The project studying a protest march on Twitter results from a collaboration with Matteo Azzi from the design studio Calibro. The study of visual imaginaries of the #amazonfires is part of a collaboration between Rina Tsubaki from the European Forest Institute and Jonathan W. Y. Gray and Liliana Bounegru at King’s College London.
Chapter 3
The work on networked content analysis was developed by Sabine during a residency as a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, a stimulating context for research on the representation of climate change in media content. Later, Klaus Krippendorff kindly wrote a preface to the Networked Content Analysis book, which was published with the Institute of Network Cultures.
