Web archives as research data

1. Gefördert von:
RESEARCH DATA AS WEB ARCHIVES – WEB
ARCHIVES AS RESEARCH DATA
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES AT THE
INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND
ARCHIVING
WARCNet Closing Conference, Aarhus
Leslie Gauditz, Svenja Kunze
17th October 2022

2. The Project:
„Emergent Norms in Corona Protests“
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Joint research project of sociological research institutes in Hamburg
> Cooperation with the archive of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research
Sociological research interest:
Societal impact of the protests against measures against Covid-19
Archival interest:
Building archival collection: process, outcome
Research Data Managament
07.2021 – 12.2022
Leslie Gauditz / Svenja Kunze: Research Data as Web Archives - Web Archives as Research Data

3. The view from the archives
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Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS) founded in 1984 as a private research institute
• Research projects in social sciences and humanities: “historically informed social science”
• Journal „Mittelweg 36“, internet portal „Soziopolis“, publishing house „Hamburger Edition“
• Public lectures/talks, conferences exhibitions
• Library and archives
Archives at HIS founded in1988, initially to support research projects on protest and resistance
movements in the Federal Republic of Germany („West Germany“)
• Holdings: more than 10.000 brochures and pamphlets, leaflets and flyers, almost 10.0000 posters,
2.900 titles of newspapers and magazines, more than 350.000 photographs, AV material...
• ~2,000 shelf meters (+ digital archive)
• 5 members of staff (just over 4 FTE)
Leslie Gauditz / Svenja Kunze: Research Data as Web Archives - Web Archives as Research Data

4. Protest and Resistance: Collections
Some of the „classical“ media
of organising and communicating
protest and resistance
(1950s-1980s/1990s)
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Research Data as Web Archives - Web Archives as Research Data

5. Formats as we know them
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6. Archival process(ing) as we know it:
selecting, organising, describing, storing information
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7. The Research Project:
„Emergent Norms in Corona Protests“
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Protest against vaccination (press material)
Frankfurter Neue Presse/ Austel, Nadja (28.12.2021): Corona-Proteste in Hessen: 150 Teilnehmer in Limburg –
Auflagen wurden ignoriert https://www.fnp.de/hessen/corona-hessen-proteste-impfgegner-querdenker-limburg-
hofheim-spaziergaenge-91205584.html Last seen 16.10.2022.
„Querdenken“ protest in Berlin 29.08.2020 (Press material)
Aachener Zeitung (2020): „Querdenker“ demonstrieren in Berlin. https://www.aachener-
zeitung.de/panorama/bilder-querdenken-demo-in-berlin-gegen-corona-politik_bid-
53038793#22. Last seen 16.10.2022.
Leslie Gauditz / Svenja Kunze: Research Data as Web Archives - Web Archives as Research Data

8. 10
The Research Project:
„Emergent Norms in Corona Protests
Leslie Gauditz / Svenja Kunze: Research Data as Web Archives - Web Archives as Research Data
Screenshot of the research project’s telegram-Account. Own image.
Profile picture of a Telegram-user. Picture says: Corona-
Vaccination? No Thank you. (Source unknown)

9. Collecting research data
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Qualitative sociological approach: interest in human behavior, opinions
or meaning making
• Research Methods that we used:
 „digital ethnography“: observation of messenger services and other social
media (facebook, Telegram, Youtube, Odysee, discord, QuerTube etc.)
 Interviews with 12 people in Hamburg
This implies:
• A circular research process is the norm. We often do not know what data
(and data formats) we will collect during the research.
• The logic of selection follows the research question(s) and not relevant
actors or data sources. We often use less than we could collect.
Research Questions “Emergent
Norms in Corona Protests”:
(1) How is the social interaction of
the participants specifically
shaped?
(2) What understandings of
themselves, other participants,
state action, and social situations
do they present to themselves and
others?
(3) In which (communicative) ways
are they connected to previous
social and political milieus, groups
and organizations, and where can
we recognize new connections?
(4) How are virtual communication
formats and physical encounters
connected in the context of rallies?
Leslie Gauditz / Svenja Kunze: Research Data as Web Archives - Web Archives as Research Data

10. Collecting research data
Data formats:
• screenshots and images (memes, photos, illustration); *jpg, *gif, *png, *tgs, *pdf
• audio and video (voice messages, memos, interviews); e.g. *ogg, *opus, *m4a, *mp4
• exports, comments; *json, *xlxs, *html
• (my own notes; *docx, *m4a, handwritten)
Affordances for good coding and analysis:
• good visual overview (individual data or screenshot because there is no other good option for
visualisation available)
• Should fit into software of analysis (e.g. MAXQDA, Atlas.ti)
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Screenshot of Data Analysis Software MaxQDa.
For example:
In Maxqda you can
import various text
files and image files
as well as audio and
video files.
Some of the files we
collected we had to
convert.
At the moment
(2022) you can
directly import
YouTube and
Twitter.

12. Lessons (to be) learnt, pt. 1
Legal issues & Ethical concerns
Consent:
• Anonymization? Half-public nature of social
media
• Data is very current (consent given concerns
different time ranges)
• Relationship of trust important for access to
data (e.g. built during interview situation) >
gets lost in the archive
Technical issues
• Data files are different
• Which ones will last? What purpose?
• Who takes care of the technical support?
Methods issues
• Data selection before research process?
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13. Lessons (to be) learnt, pt. 2
How to embed research data management in research projects from the start?
Archives supporting researchers at project planning stage and throughout the projects, e.g.
• regarding legal requirements for collecting, processing, storing and sharing research data (copyright,
data protection)
• regarding research data management requirements of project funders (open data, FAIR data)
Raising awareness for the possible „afterlife“ of research data beyond project:
• research data formats suitable for long-term preservation
• data (infra)structures suitable for future access and use
• metadata requirements/ standards before and whilst research data are collected
• legal requirements for potential third party use (copyright, data protection)
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14. Lessons (to be) learnt, finale
An interdisciplinary dialogue is necessary:
So far the journey has been the reward.
We found a lot of open questions which we carry with us
into the rest of the conference
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15. Thank you
Research Project „Emergent Norms in Corona Protest“
https://www.hsu-hh.de/soziologie/emergentnorms
emergentnorms@hsu-hh.de
Archives at Hamburg Institute for Social Research
https://www.his-online.de/archiv/
svenja.kunze@his-online.de
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