Critical simulation as hybrid digital method for exploring the data operations and vernacular cultures of visual social media platforms

Abstract

In this paper we outline and demonstrate the critical simulation approach to understanding the data operations of visual social media platforms. We situate this approach within the field of platform studies and position it as a ‘hybrid digital method’, before describing its application for descriptive, forensic and speculative purposes in two current research projects: one that uses machine vision combined with mixed-methods qualitative research to explore Instagram’s algorithmic visual culture; and one that combines automated data donation and machine vision to explore Facebook’s ad targeting practices.

Spray without politics? Contrasting street-based perceptions and computer vision framings of graffitied Rome

“…To analyze this sample, publicly available Google's Computer Vision technology (Google, 2022) served as a popular tool that provides users with metadata based on prominent elements of the sourced pictures. The option for this computational technique responds to a recent framework for automated visual analysis (Burgess et al, 2021) that generates data based on the description of visual vernacular called critical simulations. This method followed what the authors called critical speculative digital methods.…”

Pandemic Politics: The 2021 and 2022 German and Australian Federal Election Campaigns on Social Media

“…The tool interfaces with the existing Meta and Google ad transparency libraries, but offers additional archival, ranking, search, data aggregation, and visualisation abilities (see Figure 1). The second tool, the Australian Ad Observatory (Burgess et al, 2021) extends the work of the Ad Observatory developed by researchers at NYU, which itself extends the ProPublica Political Ad Collector (ProPublica, 2020). The Observatory relies on the use of a browser plugin, installed by volunteer members of the Australian public on their personal computers.…”

“…In addition to the collection of political ads via the above data collection tools, we have implemented a range of new critical data analytic approaches to assist in analysis of campaign materials (Burgess et al, 2021). These While the approaches are developed as a general and highly versatile toolset for the study of platform-based political advertising materials, a specific focus for our team is on the detection and analysis of false or misleading advertising materials, and to also understand the experiences of Indigenous users of these platforms given existing concerns regarding discriminatory algorithmic advertising practices (Andrejevic et al, 2022).…”

Toward a Participatory Digital Ethnography of Blockchain Governance

“…While the temptation is to see this purely as a problem of transparency, others look instead to the material and ideological influences that may be at play in the use of algorithms (Ananny & Crawford, 2018). Researchers from the fields of humanities and social sciences have argued in favor of explainability, which can mean descriptive accounts as well as critical simulation (Burgess et al, 2021). Our focus in this article is on “explainability to whom?” recognizing that decentralized communities seek validation of socio-technical resilience rather than explanations of the mathematical dimensions of systems.…”