Update, 18th September 2014: Professor Bruno Latour has offered to act as respondent to our talk, and will also join us for subsequent discussion. The abstract below has been updated accordingly.

Later this month Liliana Bounegru and I will be giving a talk at Columbia University in New York about how to use digital methods for social and cultural research.

While it will focus on the potential of journalists utilising digital methods to improve coverage of complex issues, events and controversies – the tools and methods we will present can be used in a wide variety of different disciplines and contexts.

The talk, hosted by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, coincides with a week of public talks, seminars, performances and other activities with leading sociologist Bruno Latour.

Here’s the abstract from the Tow Center:

Mapping Issues with the Web: An Introduction to Digital Methods

How can digital traces be used to understand issues and map controversies?

On the occasion of Bruno Latour’s visit to Columbia University, this presentation will show participants how to operationalise his seminal Actor-Network Theory using digital data and methods in the service of social and cultural research.

Participants will be introduced to some of the digital methods and tools developed at the University of Amsterdam and Sciences Po over the past decade and how they have been used to generate insights around a wide variety of topics, from human rights to extremism, global health to climate change.

Professor Bruno Latour will provide a short response to this presentation and join the subsequent discussion.

Liliana Bounegru and Jonathan Gray collaborated to produce the popular, prescient Data Journalism Handbook, published in 2012. They are currently working on a new project exploring how journalists can use new digital tools and methods developed by social science researchers to transform coverage of complex issues and events – using the Paris 2015 climate negotiations as a case study.

Please RSVP via Eventbrite