Workshop "Visual Social Media"

From the 17th to 18th of June 2016, the research group organised the workshop ‘Visual Social Media’ in cooperation with the established British organisation Visual Social Media Lab. The aim was to develop interdisciplinary approaches to the analysis of visual data in social networks as well as to establish a long-term cooperation between the British and Austrian research teams. In the course of the two-day workshop, participants presented a variety of methodical approaches and applied them in an interdisciplinary setting. We thank the Faculty of Social Sciences for the financial support of the event!

Programme (Day 1)

The first day of the workshop was dedicated to the introduction of approaches to the analysis of visual data in social networks. Members of the Visual Social Media Lab (Farida Vis, Anne Burns, Jim Aulich und Simon Faulkner) and of the research group ‘Visual Studies’ (Petra Bernhardt, Maria Schreiber und Roswitha Breckner) presented their approaches drawing on current research projects.

9.30 Get together

10.00-10.30 Farida Vis (Visual Social Media Lab): Algorithmic visibility and netwoked images of forced migration: exploring methods for better understanding contemporary scopic regimes across different social media platforms

10.30-11.00 Jim Aulich (Visual Social Media Lab): Social media pictures and the persistence of images

11.00-11.15 Short break

11.15-12.45 Simon Faulkner (Visual Social Media Lab): Border spectacle and migrant struggle: terminology for approaching images of migrants and refugees

12.45-12.15 Petra Bernhardt (Research Area Visual Studies): Instagramming politics: A comparative analysis of politicians' photo sharing practices

12.15-13.00 Plenary Discussion of Approaches, Similarities, Differences

13.00-14.00 Lunch break

14.00-14.30 Anne Burns (Visual Social Media Lab): So they are refugees and they can afford smart phones?

14.30-15.00 Maria Schreiber (Research Area Visual Studies): Visibility politics: comparing Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat

15.00-16.00 Roswitha Breckner (Research Area Visual Studies): Visible Life Histories on Facebook? Biographical implications of a new form of communication

16.00-16.15 Short break

16.15-17.00 Plenary Discussion of Approaches, Similarities, Differences

Programme (Day 2)

On the second day of the workshop, the two research groups engaged in an interdisciplinary collaboration, working with a set of visual data related to refuge and migration. Split in four teams, each composed of Visual Social Media Lab and ‘Visual Studies’ members, participants worked on images by the media, social media pictures and visual material used by NGOs in this context. Thus, project ideas for further cooperation of the research groups were developed.