An unexpected journey: A few lessons from sciences Po médialab's experience

Venturini, Tommaso; Jacomy, Mathieu; Meunier, A.; Latour, Bruno

doi:10.1177/2053951717720949

Cited by 39 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The importance of and the possibilities open to qualitative researchers to "… conduct 'big qual' analysis while retaining the distinctive order of knowledge about social processes" remains (Davidson et al 2019: 264). There certainly can be continuity in data enabled by the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in the digital world (Venturini et al 2017). Indeed, Savage (2017: 1133) suggest that researchers might take a 'symphonic' approach to big data analysis where "recurring descriptive motifs woven together within a complex temporal narrative" are made visible.…”

Section: Can Digitalisation Widen the Research Potential?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods

Bhimani

2020

J Manag Control

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Digitalisation is having profound effects on how enterprises function. Its impact on accounting research is growing as the rise of the internet, mobile technologies and digital economy tools generate depth, breadth and variety of data that far exceed what researchers have had access to in the past. But whilst social scientists interested in organisational issues are starting to question conventional methodological approaches to the study of contexts where digital data forms are drawn upon, little such concern has been voiced in the management accounting literature. This paper seeks to explore the continued applicability of conventional methodological thinking when carrying out investigations within digital data environments to inform management accounting studies. It considers why digitalisation impacts methodological precepts, identifies how descriptive and explanatory modes of questioning which management accountants have conventionally opted for need rethinking, discusses ways in which digital data characteristics alter what can be drawn from empirical studies, and points to the potential offered within digitalised settings for methodological advance. It concludes by highlighting the necessity, where digitalisation exists, to question modes of posing questions and to reconsider the applicability of methodological precepts deployed by management accounting researchers to date.

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Section: Can Digitalisation Widen the Research Potential?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods

Bhimani

2020

J Manag Control

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“…In retrospect, Hanson (2008) argues that the dichotomy is more "apparent than real" throughout the history of social research. More recently, a group of scholars based at the Sciences Po Médialab (founded by Bruno Latour) has developed an argument about the capacity of digital methods and big data analysis to overcome the quantitative/qualitative divide, creating a more "continuous" sociology (Venturini et al 2017). And yet, the reality of actually-existing social research is characterized by fierce debate and contraposition among different schools of thought, the consequences of which we all have, sooner or later, came to experience, for instance when receiving a report by Reviewer 2.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generalization, epistemology and concrete: what can social sciences learn from the common sense of engineers

Tulumello

2019

Fennia

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In this essay I debate critically, and somehow playfully, some assumptions and shortcomings of quantitative/positivist social research, using a dash of common sense typical of engineers. Civil engineers, in designing concrete structures, particularly those made up of concrete, have to continuously consider the error embedded in the limits of available systems of calculation, ending up adopting substantial factors of safety as counter-measures. The study of resistance of concrete structures is a good metaphor for social research; and yet, quantitative/positivist researchers, in their search for “falsifiable generalizations”, often forget about the omnipresence of error, let alone adopt the factors of safety. In short, the common sense of engineers is useful to casts some not-so-frequently-considered doubts over the capacity of quantitative methods and positivist epistemologies to create generalizable social science findings in face of uncertainty and the complexity of human societies. By casting such doubts, I advocate for a more relaxed (but not less rigorous) approach to social research and its complexity.

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“…The time for reviews has apparently come for Sciences Po Me´dialab (Venturini et al, 2017). It would be useful for equivalent programmes to take note, after the recent years of exploration where we found ourselves caught up in a dynamic, a conviction that digital technology was changing the way we do social science.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…' Quali-quanti' or 'computability'? The inaugural discourse at the birth of the Me´dialab was entirely based on the concept of 'quali-quantitative methods' coined by Venturini et al (2015). Their more recent paper in this journal (Venturini et al, 2017) advocates the continuity in data allowed by the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in the digital world. Yet this continuity seems to be challenged by the impossibility of using raw traces and secondhand data such as this recent paper acknowledges.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…When 'carbon copy' means capturing the 'whole' of the social The methodological preference for an extension of dimensions is advocated in the paper (Venturini et al, 2017) in order to counter the limitations of the quanti and quali division, for the sake of 'navigation', to reconstruct 'continuity in methods'. Yet the way it is expressed signifies, to some extent, a very specific view of 'navigation': the discontinuity between the two types of methods generated a blind spot in our vision.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Médialab stories: How to align actor network theory and digital methods

Boullier

2018

Big Data & Society

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The history of laboratories may become controversial in social sciences. In this paper, the story of Sciences Po Médialab told by Venturini et al. is discussed and completed by demonstrating the incoherence in the choice of digital methods at the Médialab from the actor network theory perspective. As the Médialab mostly used web topologies as structural analysis of social positions, they were not able to account for the propagation of ideas, considered in actor network theory as nonhumans that have their own agency. The main arguments in favour of the 'more continuous social' developed at the Médialab (quali-quanti, following the actors, zooming) proved to be as misleading as the network metaphor. The distribution of agency that actor network theory so successfully expands was paradoxicallty reduced to structures and individual preferences, to the detriment of the agency of replications that circulate entities in the form of messages, content or memes, and that should now become the next step for actor network theory-style digital methods.

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An unexpected journey: A few lessons from sciences Po médialab's experience

Cited by 39 publications

References 41 publications

Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods

Digital data and management accounting: why we need to rethink research methods

Generalization, epistemology and concrete: what can social sciences learn from the common sense of engineers

Médialab stories: How to align actor network theory and digital methods

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