i3 Seminar Analysis of online participation (2017-2021)

Organized by Valérie Beaudouin, Alexandre Mallard and Cécile Chamaret

 

Link to i3 website

The seminar aimed to develop current reflections about the use of digital data in the analysis of online practices and forms of participation. With the explosion of online communication, a richer and greater amount of information has become available to researchers to document practices in a variety of domains: consumption, political behavior, production of knowledge, sociability, democratic participation, controversy, etc. Evidence of practices and of communication occurring in these domains are now available on various media: forum, discussions lists, blogs, online press, social networks, dedicated exchange platforms, etc. Over the last few years, the use of these data for research purposes has become widespread but there is still little debate on the compilation of corpora, the methods of analysis and the articulation between digital analyses and more classical fieldwork in social science.

This seminar aimed at being a meeting place for the sharing of knowledge, practices and know-how, for researchers from a variety of backgrounds who are confronted with these common research issues. It was intended to discuss research conducted in a variety of perspectives (sociology of uses, controversy study, analyses of social networks, pragmatic investigation, innovation follow-up, etc.) while striving to articulate two sides of the research work which sometimes are in tension or remain too separate: on the one hand the collection and editing of digital materials, on the other hand their mobilization and interpretation within specific analytical frameworks. The mode of discussion allowed for a presentation of past or current research results, while giving the opportunity to “enter” the data and the approaches, and to scrutinize the tools and the know-how chosen to exploit them. The focus was not to set up a training workshop in the strict sense of the word, but rather to endeavour to make visible the use of the necessary software, corpus-building operations, and other constructions achieved by using whatever comes to hand. The point was to open a discussion on common issues about these approaches that tend to remain confined to ordinary work and to the concrete vicissitudes of research:

  • Corpus-building steps: What archiving methods to protect the data? How to optimize the articulation between the building of corpora and their analysis? What legal framework for the use of digital corpora? What status for information that claims to be publicly available and accessible for everyone?
  • Methods of analysis: How to report the various sorting operations and selection of “interesting information” out of “raw data”? How to reach stable results through triangulation? How to by-pass the sensitivity of the results obtained with the configuration of the analysis software?
  • Combined use of methodological approaches: What are the problems raised with the combined use of online data and data obtained through other means (survey, documentation, observation, etc.)? Etc.

Dates and venues

Five sessions of the seminar were scheduled in 2020-2021. They tookke place on Thursday morning from 10:30 am to 12 noon. Under ordinary circumstances they take place alternately at the École des Mines 60 boulevard St Michel 75005 Paris, and at Télécom Paris, 19 place Marguerite Perey 91120 Palaiseau (travel information to get to Télécom Paris). Due to the health situation, and until further notice, the seminar will be held by videoconference.

Programme for the year 2020-2021

February 4, 2021 (videoconference)

Benjamin Loveluck, Lecturer in sociology at Télécom Paris, IP Paris and associate researcher at Centre d’Études et de Recherches de Sciences Administratives et Politiques – CERSA (CNRS-Paris 2)

Le petit chat est mort. Dimensions numériques d’une mobilisation liée à la cause animale

The kitten is dead. Digital dimensions of a mobilization related to the animal cause

March 4, 2021

Emmanuel Marty, Senior Lecturer, Groupe de Recherches sur les Enjeux de la Communication (Gresec) – University of Grenoble Alpes, Nathalie Pignard-Cheynel, Professor of Digital Journalism at the Academy of Journalism and Media (University of Neuchâtel), Associate Researcher at the Mediation Research Center (Crem, University of Lorraine), and Brigitte Sebbah, Senior Lecturer, LERASS (Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherches Appliquées en Sciences Sociales), Université Toulouse 3- Paul Sabatier.

La participation sur le live-blog du journal Le Monde pendant l’affaire DSK

Internet users’ participation and news framing: The Strauss-Kahn case-related Live Blog at Le Monde.fr

April 1, 2021

Inès Chouk, Senior Lecturer, ThEMA (Economic Theory, Modeling and Applications-UMR 8184), University of Cergy-Pontoise, and Zied Mani, Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing Techniques, University of Nantes

Les objets connectés peuvent-ils susciter une résistance de la part des consommateurs ? Une étude netnographique

Can smart and connected products generate consumers’ resistance? A netnographic approach

May 6, 2021

Mathieu Brugidou, Pacte research associate (UMR 5194), CNRS-Université Grenoble Alpes- Sciences Po Grenoble, and senior researcher EDF R&D, and Philippe Suignard, Expert Research Engineer, EDF R&D.

Que peuvent les algorithmes de plongement de mot pour l’analyse sociologique des textes ?

What can word embedding algorithms do for the sociological analysis of texts ?

June 3, 2021

Julia Velkovska, Researcher at the SENSE laboratory of Orange Labs and associate researcher at the Center for the Study of Social Movements (CEMS-IMM) at EHESS, and Moustafa Zouinar, Researcher at at the SENSE laboratory of Orange Labs and Associate Professor, Cnam (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers)

Les relations aux machines « conversationnelles ». Vivre avec les assistants vocaux à la maison

Relationships to “conversational” machines. Living with voice assistants at home

 

Animation

The purpose of the seminar is to discuss online participation research as closely as possible with the links between data processing and subsequent interpretation. The following animation mode has been designed for this purpose:  participation research with the links between data processing and interpretation.

Prior to the seminar session, a text, already published or in the process of writing, will be made available on the seminar website.

A half-hour presentation by one or several guests will be centered, not on the argument (the participants should have read the text beforehand and thus already know the argument), but on the “making of”: specificities of data engineering implemented, recording devices / corpus-building process, analysis strategies, tools mobilized, etc.

The purpose of the collective discussion is to explore the link between data processing and analyses, interpretations, arguments to which they give rise.


Seminar programme in 2017-2018 »

Seminar programme in 2018-2019 »

Seminar programme in 2019-2020 »