TY - JOUR

T1 - Grøn Genstart

T2 - A quali-quantitative micro-history of a political idea in real-time

AU - Isfeldt, Annika S.H.

AU - Enggaard, Thyge R.

AU - Blok, Anders

AU - Pedersen, Morten A.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - In this study, we build on a recent social data scientific mapping of Danish environmentalist organizations and activists during the COVID-19 lockdown in order to sketch a distinct genre of digital social research that we dub a quali-quantitative micro-history of ideas in real-time. We define and exemplify this genre by tracing and tracking the single political idea and activist slogan of grøn genstart (‘green restart’) across Twitter and other public–political domains. Specifically, we achieve our micro-history through an iterative and mutual attuning between computational and netnographic registers and techniques, in ways that contribute to the nascent field of computational anthropology. By documenting the serial ways in and different steps through which our inquiry was continually fed and enhanced by crossing over from (n)ethnographic observation to computational exploration, and vice versa, we offer up our grøn genstart case account as exemplary of wider possibilities in this line of inquiry. In particular, we position the genre of micro-history of ideas in real-time within the increasingly wide and heterogeneous space of digital social research writ large, including its established concerns with ‘big and broad’ social data, the repurposing of computational ‘interface’ techniques for socio-cultural research, as well as diverse aspirations for deploying digital data within novel combinations of qualitative and quantitative methods.

AB - In this study, we build on a recent social data scientific mapping of Danish environmentalist organizations and activists during the COVID-19 lockdown in order to sketch a distinct genre of digital social research that we dub a quali-quantitative micro-history of ideas in real-time. We define and exemplify this genre by tracing and tracking the single political idea and activist slogan of grøn genstart (‘green restart’) across Twitter and other public–political domains. Specifically, we achieve our micro-history through an iterative and mutual attuning between computational and netnographic registers and techniques, in ways that contribute to the nascent field of computational anthropology. By documenting the serial ways in and different steps through which our inquiry was continually fed and enhanced by crossing over from (n)ethnographic observation to computational exploration, and vice versa, we offer up our grøn genstart case account as exemplary of wider possibilities in this line of inquiry. In particular, we position the genre of micro-history of ideas in real-time within the increasingly wide and heterogeneous space of digital social research writ large, including its established concerns with ‘big and broad’ social data, the repurposing of computational ‘interface’ techniques for socio-cultural research, as well as diverse aspirations for deploying digital data within novel combinations of qualitative and quantitative methods.

KW - Computational ethnography

KW - digital methodology

KW - environmental activism

KW - political ideas

KW - real-time microhistory

KW - Twitter

KW - Computational ethnography

KW - environmental activism

KW - Twitter

KW - real-time microhistory

KW - political ideas

KW - digital methodology

U2 - 10.1177/20539517211070300

DO - 10.1177/20539517211070300

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85125832949

VL - 9

SP - 1

EP - 15

JO - Big Data & Society

JF - Big Data & Society

SN - 2053-9517

IS - 1

ER -