Training for Researchers on Digital methods in Social Research
Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute invites VMU researchers to a methodological workshop on digital social research methods and their future tendencies.
- Date – 4 April 2024 at 14:00.
- Duration of the workshop – 2 hours (2.5 academic hours).
- Language – English.
- Format – online workshop via MS Teams.
- Please register to the workshop here. All registered participants will receive MS Teams link to the workshop a few days before the training.
Instructor: Dr Matti Pohjonen, Senior Researcher at the University of Helsinki, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH).
About workshop
The purpose of the workshop is to introduce researchers to the use of digital methods in social sciences and humanities research (Rogers, 2014, Lindgren, 2020). Broadly speaking, digital methods encompass a variety of research techniques aimed at analyzing digital data, and especially online and social media data, often at a large scale.
These methods are not only limited to digital sociology (Lupton 2014) and computational social sciences (Nelimarkka 2023) but also include a diverse range of techniques that complement more traditional qualitative and ethnographic research approaches (Pohjonen 2020). More recently, researchers have also started incorporating generative AI and large-language models (LLMs) into their research frameworks.
The goal of the workshop is to provide the researchers with theoretical, methodological and technical background to actively engage with these debates. We also introduce some best use-case scenarios, different methodological approaches linked to them, and some best practices of deploying digital methods either through ready-made tools (DMI, Gephi) or by coding examples through Python and R. We also highlight some future trends linked to the growing use of AI in social sciences and humanities and some of the ethical and epistemological questions raised by this (Törnberg 2023).
The workshop will consist of both an interactive lecture as well as practical example of using digital methods as well as discussions related to the specific research interests of the participants.
After finishing the workshop, the participants should have the prerequisite knowledge of methodological and practical possibilities, as well as limitations, of using digital methods in their own research. No previous experience with programming or computational methods is required.
More about the instructor: The convenor of the workshop, Matti Pohjonen, currently works as a Senior Researcher at the Helsinki Institute of Social Sciences (HSSH), University of Helsinki, where he specializes in developing digital methods using open social media/internet data for social sciences and humanities research. He also currently leads two research projects using digital methods, one exploring issues related to generative AI and the other on global trends in authoritarian information suppression online. Pohjonen has previously worked as a Lecturer in Global Digital Media at SOAS, University of London (2018-2020), Research Fellow for the Vox-Pol Network of Excellence (2015-2017) and a Researcher for Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP), University of Oxford (2014-2016).
For more information about the workshop please send email at vki[eta]vdu.lt.
The workshop is a part of the project “Strengthening the R&D activities of the Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (SOCMTEP)”. The project is funded by the Research Council of Lithuania and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania, Contract No S-A-UEI-23-13 (2023-12-27). The funding programme is the “Excellence in Universities Initiative” (No V-940).
