Thread by @dibsroy86

Little did I know while co-hosting the #DHARTITwitterConf earlier this year, that online academia would be a new “normal.”Privileged to be awarded a NEH fellowship to be part of the #NEHNetResearch institute. Amazing work by the organizers and instructors at UCF in setting it up.

@dh_dharti

1/n Beginning today till the last day of the workshop (June 5), I will try articulating my thoughts (rants?) and perceptions on digitality and Humanistic inquiry on/through the internet in the series of tweets on this thread. #NEHNetResearch

(2/n) While using the various tools for data scraping from Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube, I wonder how important it is for the researcher to understand the nuances of the algorithm that lies behind the #blackboxsociety technology often promotes?#NEHNetResearch

(3/n) How many researchers from the social sciences and the humanities have the wherewithal to understand such tech-intricacies? Is that one of the the primary barriers for DH/Internet inquiry. I am thinking primarily of context (specifically the Global South) #NEHNetResearch

(4/n) Empathetic and incisive scholars in a transatlantic online chat can take all the day's tiredness away even it is well past 1 am.
#NEHNetResearch

(5/n) A question/thought bubble that I end the first day with: how do we define "access" when it comes to a technology like the internet? Is it located in the quality of the device, the platform or the epistemic position of the user? All of them? #NEHNetResearch

(6/n) Day 2 #NEHNetResearch Yesterday I ended the day with a query on access. Today fellow academics shared this news item with me from a local newspaper:
ndtv.com/india-news/cor…
A timely reminder that #digitaldetox is also a privilege.

(7/n) Day 2 #NEHNetResearch Also makes me wonder about platform affordances: for example I am may be generalizing but #Slack which is very popular globally seems to have limited purchase in South Asian Spaces. The ubiquitousness of WhatsApp makes me wonder...

(8/n) Day 2 #NEHNetResearch ...what endears one digital platform to a particular space. Is there some cultural memory that WhatsApp taps into or is its mere usability on mobile devices that makes it such a raging success in India?

(9/n) Ending Day 2 of #NEHNetResearch with a "frivolous" question. (also the word I used to describe "twitter Bots" in response to a question by @leo_elo_ole)
If androids dream of electric sheep what do twitter bots dream of?

(10/n) Day 3 of #NEHNetResearch In the last few days as we been learning and discussing more about various tools for gathering online data I have been intrigued why the qualifier "scraping" is linked to the online.

(11/n)#NEHNetResearch I have rarely heard it used in the context of offline data where "collection" seems to be more common. What does the "scraping v/s collecting" paradigm tell us about the ontology of data?

(12/n) )#NEHNetResearch Do these signifiers attached to the online and the offline make a distinction between one form of data being more discrete & the other being more intertwined/contingent on its surroundings? (like "collecting apples" v/s"scraping mud/cake batter")

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