This document provides an overview of various digital tools and methods for social and cultural research presented at the Digital Methods Summer School in Amsterdam in 2015. It introduces the Digital Methods Initiative and their tool database, then demonstrates several tools through examples analyzing the response of US embassies to Wikileaks' Cablegate, mapping the Dutch blogosphere over time, and exploring the nationalities of different rights types through search engine queries. The document concludes by showcasing additional bonus tools from collaborators in Paris and Milan.

1. Digital Methods Tool Medley
Digital Methods Summer School 2015, Amsterdam, 29 June - 10 July
Anne Helmond @silvertje
Tomás Saraceno, galaxies forming along filaments, Venice Biennial 2009

2. Thanks to
• Erik Borra
• Emile den Tex
• Bernhard Rieder

3. Medley?
• a diverse assortment or mixture
• a musical composition made up of
a series of songs or short pieces

4. Digital Methods Initiative (DMI):
new methods and tools for social
and cultural research

5. DMI tool database
tools.digitalmethods.net

6. DMI tool database
tools.digitalmethods.net

7. Cablegate
• Research question
• Operationalization
• Method: often a chain of tools

8. The Response of the Source
Question: Do the sources acknowledge cablegate?
1. Get all links for US embassy websites:
http://www.usembassy.gov/
2. Compile list of embassies mentioned in cables:
http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
3. Compare lists
4. Query mentioned embassies for:
1. Wikileaks
2. "Julian Assange”
3. Assange
4. Cablegate
5. Get number of cables per embassy
6. Visualize output

9. Aim: get links

10. Tool: Link ripper
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/linkRipper/

11. Result: links!

12. Repeat & paste in spreadsheet

13. Tool: Triangulate
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/triangulate/

14. Aim: Acknowledgement of leak?

15. Tool: Googlescraper
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/

16. Result: tagclouds (starting point
for further analysis)

17. The nationality of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

18. Search as research
[…] the point of departure of search as research,
or societal search, may be summarized as follows:
we look at Google results and see society, instead
of Google. That is to say, including its ‘artifacts,’
engine results put much on display – from source
competition and standing to longevity and
commitment (Rogers 2013: 110).

19. Research question
Can the search engine Google be
repurposed to show which rights are
specific per country?

20. Query Google countries
.nl (Dutch), .be (Dutch,
French), .com/.co.uk/.com.au/
(English), .it (Italian), .ro
(Romanian), .md (Moldavian), .ca
(French, English), .fr
(French), .de/.at/.lu (German), .fi
(Finnish), .se (Swedish), .ee
(Estonian), .ru (Russian)

21. “Query design”
“Query design” is the practice of
formulating a query so the results
can be interpreted as indications
and findings (however clue-like), as
opposed to mere information
retrieved or optimization and
manipulation exposed (however
fascinating) (Rogers 2013, 111).

22. “rights” in national terminology
• Google.se with query “rattigheter” (13.07.09)
• Google.fi with query “oikeudet” (13.07.09)
• Google.ee with query “oigused” (15.07.09)
• Google.lv with query “tiesibas” (16.07.09)
• Google.co.uk with query “rights” (13.07.09)
• Google.nl with query “rechten” (13.07.09)
• Google.fr with query “droits” (14.07.09)
• Google.pt with query “direitos” (14.07.09)
• Google.es with query “derechos” (13.07.09)

23. The nationalities of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

24. The nationalities of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

25. The nationalities of rights types
https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/NationalityofIssues

26. Mapping the Dutch blogosphere
https://www.issuecrawler.net/

27. Tool: IssueCrawler

28. Result: network graph
IssueCrawler -> Gephi

29. The historical Dutch blogosphere

30. Source: Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org

31. Aim: Get links

32. Tool: Harvester
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/harvestUrls/

33. Dutch blogosphere: active blogs
Tool: Censorship Explorer
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/proxies/

34. Dutch blogosphere (in)active blogs

35. Tool: Censorship explorer

37. Tool: Censorship explorer
https://mappingiranonline.digitalmethods.net/

38. Tool: Dorling map generator
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/dorling/

39. Tool: Instagram scraper
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/instagram/

40. Result: images + (meta)data

41. Tool: DownThemAll!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/

42. Tool: DMI Twitter Capturing and
Analysis Toolset (DMI-TCAT)
https://github.com/digitalmethodsinitiative/dmi-tcat

43. Tool: YouTube Data Tools
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/netvizz/youtube/

44. Tool: Netvizz
https://apps.facebook.com/netvizz/

45. Tool: Tracker Tracker
https://tools.digitalmethods.net/beta/trackerTracker/

46. BONUS TOOLS!

47. Open Refine
http://openrefine.org/

48. Open Refine
http://openrefine.org/

49. Palladio
Palladio is a web-based platform for the
visualization of complex, multi-dimensional data.
http://palladio.designhumanities.org/

50. Tools from our colleagues in Paris
http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/

51. Tool: Table 2 Net
http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/table2net/

52. Tools from our colleagues in Milan
http://raw.densitydesign.org/

53. Tool: RAW
http://raw.densitydesign.org/

54. kthnxbai!
www.digitalmethods.net
Anne Helmond @silvertje
Tomás Saraceno, galaxies forming along filaments, Venice Biennial 2009