The Digital Methods Initiative - About Us

The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) is one of Europe's leading Internet Studies research groups. Comprised of new media researchers and PhD candidates, it designs methods and tools for repurposing online devices and platforms (such as Twitter, Facebook and Google) for research into social and political issues. With founding support from the Mondriaan Foundation, DMI has participated in a variety of funded research projects such as MACOSPOL (Mapping Controversies on Science for Politics) and EMAPS (Electronic Maps to Assist Public Science), the EU FP6 and FP7 projects led by Bruno Latour as well as Contropedia in the EU EINS scheme. Most recently, DMI is participating in ODYCCEUS, the H2020 project concerning opinion dynamics and cultural conflict in European spaces. The Digital Methods Initiative, together with the Govcom.org Foundation, have received grants from the Soros Foundation, Open Society Institute, Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, New Venture Fund and have worked as partners in projects funded by the National Science Foundation (U.S.) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Its IssueCrawler software has been supported by nearly 100 universities as well as non-governmental organisations. Other well-known software tools include the Lippmannian Device, Netvizz (Facebook analysis) and DMI-TCAT (Twitter analysis).

Here is an interview about the history of the Digital Methods Initiative (2014) by Michele Mauri, DensityDesign Lab, Milan, speaking with Richard Rogers, the director. Here is one in Spanish, El Discurso del Método Digital (2016). A recent interview by Sarah Lewthwaite in the Chilean design journal, Diseña, is here (2019).
And here is a promo video about the Digital Methods Summer School (2014) and one Lisa Maier made about the Summer School in 2015 (tip!)

DMI featured projects include:

A series of ongoing projects about Trump, fake news and the meme wars (2017)

Mapping Iran Online, 2012-2013
Right-wing Formations in Europe and their Counter-measures, 2013
Climaps: A Global Issue Atlas of Climate Change Adaptation, 2013-2015
Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe, 2013-2015

DMI works with non-governmental organizations, activists, journalists and artists alike. Collaborators have included representatives from:
Greenpeace International
Human Rights Watch
Association for Progressive Communications
Women on Waves
Carbon Trade Watch
Corporate Observatory Europe
Fair Phone
Open Knowledge Foundation
Hivos.
Pauw en Witteman, VARA (Dutch talk show)
Sacom
DVRC

The Sacom and DVRC collaborations took place at the Hong Kong Digital Methods Research Summit, August 2016.

The Digital Methods Initiative is directed by Richard Rogers, Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. The coordinators are Sabine Niederer and Esther Weltevrede. The managing director is Liliana Bounegru. DMI holds annual Summer Schools and Winter Schools, which have been supported by the Center for Creation, Content and Technology (CCCT) at the University of Amsterdam, now the Amsterdam Data Science network.

There is a substantive introduction (or a founding narrative) to the Digital Methods Initiative. Digital Methods research themes include:
Links, likes and other natively digital objects
Websites as archived objects
Engine critique and search as research
Cross-spherical analysis as comparative media studies
National web studies
Wikipedia as cultural reference
Social media data, post-demographics and platform studies
Digital methods for issue mapping
Digital methods theory

Field Guide to Online Trackers. Entry to the Crypto Design Award challenge, Museum of the Image, Breda, 2015.

Contact

Email: info [at] digitalmethods.net

Postal address:
Digital Methods Initiative
Mediastudies
University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam
the Netherlands

Academic Collaborations

The Digital Methods Initiative is collaborating in one form or another with the following organizations:

Barcelona Media, Barcelona, Spain
Centre for the Study of Invention & Social Process, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Citizen Lab, University of Toronto, Canada
Density Design, Milan, Italy
Infoscape Research Lab, Ryerson, Canada
Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Iran Media Program, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, USA
King's College London, UK
Media Lab, Sciences Po, Paris, France
Medialab, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Politiek Online, The Hague, the Netherlands
University of Lille
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for 21st Century Studies, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Yahoo! Research, Barcelona, Spain.

Digital Methods Courses

There are Digital Methods related courses being given at the following institutions:

University of Amsterdam
University of Bergen
Central European University, Budapest
University of Copenhagen
Goldsmiths College, University of London
King's College London
London School of Economics
University of Milan
Politecnico di Milano
Politecnico di Torino
Sciences Po Paris
University of Warwick

There are many other 'digital methods' courses given worldwide in such areas as history, political science, communication studies as well as media arts.

The Digital Methods Initiative is also a member of Demoscience, the international controversy mapping consortium.

People

Please see the DMI People page