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. 2023 Jan 26:5:510310.
doi: 10.3389/fdata.2022.510310. eCollection 2022.

Staying with the trouble of networks

Daniela van Geenen  1 , Jonathan W Y Gray  2 , Liliana Bounegru  2 , Tommaso Venturini  3   4 , Mathieu Jacomy  5 , Axel Meunier  3   6
Affiliations

Staying with the trouble of networks

Daniela van Geenen et al. Front Big Data. .

Abstract

Networks have risen to prominence as intellectual technologies and graphical representations, not only in science, but also in journalism, activism, policy, and online visual cultures. Inspired by approaches taking trouble as occasion to (re)consider and reflect on otherwise implicit knowledge practices, in this article we explore how problems with network practices can be taken as invitations to attend to the diverse settings and situations in which network graphs and maps are created and used in society. In doing so, we draw on cases from our research, engagement and teaching activities involving making networks, making sense of networks, making networks public, and making network tools. As a contribution to "critical data practice," we conclude with some approaches for slowing down and caring for network practices and their associated troubles to elicit a richer picture of what is involved in making networks work as well as reconsidering their role in collective forms of inquiry.

Keywords: algorithm studies; critical data practice; data studies; ethnomethodology; feminist epistemologies; science and technology studies.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Network visualization with Linkurious tool from 2015 Panama Papers project showing different kinds of legal and financial relations between companies, addresses and people associated with them.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A, B) Exploration and mapping of Dutch-speaking Twitter users as part of a collaboration between media researchers and journalists conducted by Daniela van Geenen and Maranke Wieringa at the office of the Datafied Society research platform. The photograph shows the construction of the retweet network in August 2017 on a large screen (left). The screenshot zooms in on the spatialized and filtered network graph of the same retweet network in Gephi's interface with the cursor pointing to the politically right-wing cluster (community 56) (right).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagram of network research processes using digital methods, designed at the médialab (Sciences Po), and presented at the MiniVAN workshop in London. The diagram shows different kinds of research tools, objects, and processes in research activities of the lab.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Diagram of network research process from MiniVAN workshop in London (November, 2018). The diagram shows different ways of creating and working with networks and associated interface features.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Screenshot of a settings text file created with the Gephi Fieldnotes Plugin summarizing basic details of the network graph and software settings and operations applied to it.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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