Data Excess in Digital Media Research

Natalie Ann Hendry, Ingrid Richardson

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781804559451
• eBook ISBN: 9781804559444
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Data excess — particularly in digital media research — is inevitable. It emerges as the 'debris' and 'leftovers' from planning, fieldwork and writing; the words cut from drafts and copied to untouched and forgotten files; digital metadata automatically recorded to databases; the data archived but never analysed or published. What do or can we do with this excess from our research?

Thinking beyond academic constraints and the constant push towards the next new fundable thing, Data Excess in Digital Media Research explicitly engages with data that has been left behind, ignored, obscured or even 'written out' of research publications. Positioning 'excess' as a conceptual, methodological, ethical and pragmatic challenge and opportunity, the authors in this edited collection examine what can happen when media researchers return to their surplus archives and develop new knowledge from what would otherwise be under-explored excess.

Provoking an ethical reconsideration of what we do, or do not do, with excess data, this is a call to action for researchers and scholars to rethink how they conduct their research as the consequences of datafication grow ever more central to both our academic endeavours and our lives.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Data Excess in Digital Media Research
• Data Excess in Digital Media Research
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Digital Data, Research Ethos and Haunting
• 2. Reframing Data Excess
• 3. Unanticipated Excess: Inescapable Moments and Uneasy Feelings
• 4. The Digital Mess of a Digital Ethnography
• 5. ‘Digital Hoarding’ and Embracing Data Excess in Digital Cultures Research
• 6. The Epistemic Culture of Data Minimalism: Conducting an Ethnography of Travel Influencers
• 7. Embodied Excess: Interpreting Haptic Mobile Media Practices
• 8. Re-engaging With Excess Data: Newbie Researchers, Tumblr and the Evolving Research Event
• 9. Museums, Smart Cities and Big Data: How Can We Transform Data Excess Into Data Intelligence?
• 10. Evaluation, Digital Data and Excess(es) in Health Interventions
• Index