Presentation of annual DECIDIS survey // Pilot study on marginalized groups // New publications on the Ethnografic Use of Facebook in Everyday Life by DECIDIS researcher Steffen Dalsgaard

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Presentation of DECIDIS survey: Social Media & Political Engagement

Wednesday, March 9th
Kl. 14.00 – 16.00
Room: Aud4 – IT Unviversity Copenhagen

Next Wednesday DECIDIS researchers Gitte Stald and Luca Rossi will present first findings of the annual DECIDIS survey researching the Danish social media sphere. The representative survey provides insights into Danish media habits and preferences. The goal of the study is to contribute towards the on-going discussion of how social media influences democractic practices.

Everybody is welcome, no registration needed.

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Pilot study on marginalized groups

In December 2015, Gitte Bang Stald and Mette Grønbæk Rasmussen, conducted a pilot study on digital citizenship within socially marginalized groups. The aim of the study was to explore how marginalization and vulnerability can be studied in relation to digital society. Exploring the consequences of the “digital divide”, the study went further into how marginalization and restricted access to ICT affects the experience of citizenship in the digital age.

A preliminary analysis of the interviews show that life is very different for all informants, which is reflected their media use and their experiences of citizenship and exclusion. People with no permanent residence, personal communication and information are restricted by the lack of power supply (“if only smartphones used AA batteries”). That is to say, most practical means of communication are non-smart mobile-phones (long-lasting battery) and FM radio (entertaining AND uses AA batteries). For people living under long-term incarceration, communication is shaped by institutionalization and the problem of security. Contact with people and institutions outside the wall is therefore limited to face-to face visits, snail mail and land-line phonecalls (from one of the phonebooth in a common area).

Further information on our blog.

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New publication by Steffen Dalsgaard (in press): The Ethnographic Use of Facebook in Everyday Life

New social media have become indispensable as platforms for communication to people all over the
world with Facebook being the most popular. Hence, platforms such as Facebook are also
becoming crucial tools to ethnographers because much social life now exists ‘online’. Yet what
types of field relations stem from such social media-driven ethnography? And what kinds of data do
these relations present to the ethnographer? These questions must be considered in order to
understand what challenges Facebook and other social media pose to ethnographic methodology.
This article focuses on how Facebook may gain an important role even to ethnographic work
concerned with other questions than how Facebook works as a social medium. Most importantly it
allows updating of the ethnographer. I argue that ethnography is already in possession of the
methodological tools to critically assess the validity and value of data gathered or produced via
Facebook including questions such as authenticity, which appear pertinent also for digital
ethnography.

Contact Steffen Dalsgaard: sdal@itu.dk

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