Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research
ABSTRACTImagery frames reality, and political actors tell stories using images. In an increasingly digital communication landscape, political actors tell visual stories directly on websites or social media channels. This online shift places digital imagery centrally in how we picture political issue...
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2023
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:36f948537fed416897bdb9c1893d3772 2024-09-09T19:21:37+00:00 Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research Aslak Veierud Busch 2023-12-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 https://doaj.org/article/36f948537fed416897bdb9c1893d3772 EN eng Taylor & Francis Group https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 https://doaj.org/toc/2474-736X doi:10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 2474-736X https://doaj.org/article/36f948537fed416897bdb9c1893d3772 Political Research Exchange, Vol 5, Iss 1 (2023) Digital visual discourse data collection search engines Arctic Political science J article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 2024-08-05T17:50:00Z ABSTRACTImagery frames reality, and political actors tell stories using images. In an increasingly digital communication landscape, political actors tell visual stories directly on websites or social media channels. This online shift places digital imagery centrally in how we picture political issues, events, and places. Digital images are mobile, circulable and appropriable, which means images are not fused to their immediately surrounding text. Telling a story with digital imagery constitutes a contribution toward a wider digital visual discourse, enabled by circulation. Interpretivist research lacks tools to unpack this digital visual discourse. This article critically evaluates a technique to tap into digital visual discourse using semi-automated data collection utilising search engines. Such data collection tools can divorce imagery from its immediately surrounding text and create a corpus that allows us to identify a digital visual discourse around a given topic. I draw on an attempt at scraping search engines to this end, studying how actors portray the Arctic. The technique is presented transparently with a call to engage with the tool, to spur methodological debates and innovation. Search engine scraping can, in the right research design and if applied critically, illuminate new dimensions of discourse by prying apart written text and imagery. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Political Research Exchange 5 1 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
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English |
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Digital visual discourse data collection search engines Arctic Political science J |
spellingShingle |
Digital visual discourse data collection search engines Arctic Political science J Aslak Veierud Busch Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
topic_facet |
Digital visual discourse data collection search engines Arctic Political science J |
description |
ABSTRACTImagery frames reality, and political actors tell stories using images. In an increasingly digital communication landscape, political actors tell visual stories directly on websites or social media channels. This online shift places digital imagery centrally in how we picture political issues, events, and places. Digital images are mobile, circulable and appropriable, which means images are not fused to their immediately surrounding text. Telling a story with digital imagery constitutes a contribution toward a wider digital visual discourse, enabled by circulation. Interpretivist research lacks tools to unpack this digital visual discourse. This article critically evaluates a technique to tap into digital visual discourse using semi-automated data collection utilising search engines. Such data collection tools can divorce imagery from its immediately surrounding text and create a corpus that allows us to identify a digital visual discourse around a given topic. I draw on an attempt at scraping search engines to this end, studying how actors portray the Arctic. The technique is presented transparently with a call to engage with the tool, to spur methodological debates and innovation. Search engine scraping can, in the right research design and if applied critically, illuminate new dimensions of discourse by prying apart written text and imagery. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Aslak Veierud Busch |
author_facet |
Aslak Veierud Busch |
author_sort |
Aslak Veierud Busch |
title |
Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
title_short |
Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
title_full |
Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
title_fullStr |
Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
title_full_unstemmed |
Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
title_sort |
picturing the arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research |
publisher |
Taylor & Francis Group |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 https://doaj.org/article/36f948537fed416897bdb9c1893d3772 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Political Research Exchange, Vol 5, Iss 1 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 https://doaj.org/toc/2474-736X doi:10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 2474-736X https://doaj.org/article/36f948537fed416897bdb9c1893d3772 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2153705 |
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Political Research Exchange |
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5 |
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1 |
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