The computational turn in the social sciences and humanities has generated much excitement about the potential to refresh our approaches to the study of the techno-social. From natively digital to digitised data, researchers of digital diasporas increasingly find themselves working with a range of disparate digital objects. These digital objects can include anything from hyperlink to timestamps, from platform behavioural metrics such as react, share, or retweet to different media formats such as text, image, pre-recorded or livestreamed videos.
Taking these disparate objects into account, this book introduces digital methods as research strategies not only for dealing with the ephemeral and unstable nature of tracing the diaspora with digital data, but also for reconceptualizing digital diasporas as assemblages and networks of more-than-human actors. The book also introduces a range of theoretical perspectives and methodological techniques to studying digital diasporas as contingent and processual hybrid collectives of heterogeneous material, cultural, and practice-based assemblages.
This book will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in the digital space and transnational communities.
Author(s): Dang Nguyen
Series: Digital Diaspora Series
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: xi; 147
City: London
Tags: African Diaspora; Asian Diaspora; International Media; New Media; Migration & Diaspora; Diaspora Studies; International Relations; Technoculture; Sociology of Media; African Studies; Area Studies; Asian Studies (General); Media & Communications; Social Sciences; Sociology of Culture; Humanities; Politics & International Relations
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
Acknowledgement xi
Introduction 1
Part I: Quantitative approaches: making natively digital data speak 5
1. Diasporas as quantifiable networks 7
Network analysis as a multidisciplinary inquiry
Actor-network theory and the sociology of Gabriel Tarde
How to assemble a diasporic network: formalist vs. relational approaches
Formalism and social networks - the network flow approach
Relationalism and social networks - the network architecture approach
Case study: the e-Diasporas Atlas project
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
2. Social network analysis and the diaspora 24
Introduction
Of nodes and ties: what's in a network?
Basic network statistics and concepts
Monadic analysis
Dyadic analysis
Triadic analysis
Meso-level analysis
Whole-network analysis
Case study: weak ties and knowledge propagation across Vietnamese traditional medicine networks on Facebook
Case study overview
Sample selection and data collection
Application of social network analysis
Content analysis methodology
Social network analysis results
Content analysis results
Implications of research findings
Conclusion
References
3. Natural language processing and linguistic issues in diaspora research 52
Introduction
NLP and social media data: the case for digital diaspora research
NLP workflow and structural inequities for non-English research
Case study: topic modelling and online discourse about traditional medicine
Literature overview & research questions
Methodological choices and motivation
Site selection strategy
Data collection and network generation
Results - network analysis
Results - text analysis and topic modelling
Discussion
Note
References
Part II: Qualitative and technological approaches 79
4. Digital diasporas as ethnographic sites 81
Introduction
Give me the internet and I'll build a diaspora
Diasporic sociality and digital technologies: a call for mixing methods
Case study: conceptions of mediated space among Vietnamese diasporas
Background to case study
Ethnographic design
Diasporic spaces as material, sensorial, and contextual
Conclusion
References
5. Digital ethnography for the diaspora 99
Introduction
The multisituated researcher and the politics of diaspora
Digital ethnography and the experience and practice of digital diaspora
Case study: theorising the temporal structures of diasporic lives
Background to case study
The durée of downtime
The body cannot wait: the oscillation between instantaneity and simultaneity in liveness
Downtime, recalibrated: enactments of liveness and their effects
Conclusion
References
6. Automating the diaspora?: Algorithmic organisation of digital diasporas 122
Introduction
Algorithmic culture and automated systems as social infrastructure
Recommender systems and the organisation of digital resources
Social recommender systems
Deep learning for recommender systems
Recommender systems and digital diasporas: some emergent methodological issues
References
Appendices 135
Appendix 1
Appendix 2 Summary statistics for the interpretation of a topic
Index 144
