Half Title Page
Data Excess in Digital Media Research
Title Page
Data Excess in Digital Media Research
Edited by
Natalie Ann Hendry
The University of Melbourne, Australia
And
Ingrid Richardson
RMIT University, Australia
United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China
Copyright Page
Emerald Publishing Limited
Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL
First edition 2025
Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Natalie Ann Hendry and Ingrid Richardson.
Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.
Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-80455-945-1 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-80455-944-4 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-80455-946-8 (Epub)
List of Figures
| Chapter 4 | ||
| Figure 4.1. | Author’s Replication of Mattel’s Barbie Instagram Story, 20th March 2020. | 46 |
| Figure 4.2. | Author’s Replication of Facebook COVID-19 Information Pop-Up, 15th August 2020. | 47 |
| Figure 4.3. | Author’s Replication of Social Media Posts Captured in 2020 (Original Screenshots Not Included to Preserve Privacy and Copyright). | 49 |
| Chapter 6 | ||
| Figure 6.1. | Clusters of a YouTube Recommender Network. | 79 |
| Figure 6.2. | Cluster of Ultra-High-Definition Vlogs About Walking Tours. | 81 |
| Figure 6.3. | Cluster of Videos About River Cruises. | 82 |
About the Editors
Natalie Ann Hendry is a Senior Lecturer in Youth Wellbeing in the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. Previously, she was a member of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC), RMIT University, and a Lecturer in Health and Wellbeing at Deakin University. Natalie's research investigates the relationships between education, health and media in young adults' lives. Her current work explores the pedagogical relationship between social media and psychotherapy and how digital finance cultures influence finance and investing practices. Her first book, Tumblr (Polity Press), was released in 2021 and co-authored with Katrin Tiidenberg and Crystal Abidin.
Ingrid Richardson is a Professor of Digital Media at RMIT University, Australia. She has published on a wide range of topics, including philosophy of technoscience, virtual and augmented reality, games and mobile media, social media and participatory network cultures and the phenomenology of media practices. Recent books include Understanding Games and Game Cultures (Sage, 2021) with Larissa Hjorth and Hugh Davies; Bodies and Mobile Media (Polity Press, 2023) with Rowan Wilken; and Containment: Technologies of Holding, Filtering, Leaking (Meson, 2024) with Marie-Luise Angerer, Hannah Schmedes and Zoë Sofoulis.
About the Contributors
Natalia Grincheva is a Programme Leader in Arts Management at LASALLE, University of Arts Singapore, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Digital Studio at the University of Melbourne. She is an internationally recognised expert on innovative forms and global trends in contemporary museology, digital diplomacy and international cultural relations. She has received many prestigious international academic awards, including Fulbright (2007–2009), Quebec Fund (2011–2013) and Australian Endeavour (2012–2013). In 2020, she was awarded Oxford Fellowship for her visiting research residency at the Digital Diplomacy Research Centre at the University of Oxford. She is the author of three monographs Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age (Routledge, 2020) and Global Trends in Museum Diplomacy (Routledge, 2019).
Benjamin Hanckel (he/him) is a Sociologist at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. Benjamin's research explores youth health and wellbeing, social inequalities in health and social change. His work has a particular focus on the design and use of digital technologies for health and wellbeing.
Jess Hardley is a Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Her interdisciplinary research primarily focuses on ethnography, feminist theories of embodiment, and mobile media practices. Her research has been published in Australian Feminist Studies, Convergence, and Gender and Education. She also serves as an editorial board member of the journal Digital Geography and Society.
Ben Lyall is a Digital Sociologist, teaching and researching in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University. He is interested in how social lives are impacted by digital infrastructures and smart devices. Using digital mixed method approaches, his work explores education, employment, health and wellbeing and citizen relationships with public services.
Claire Moran is a Research Fellow with Action Lab at Monash University. Her research examines the use of digital technologies by marginalised and disadvantaged communities, particularly those from migrant backgrounds. Her doctoral research explored the everyday social media practices and experiences of Black African Australian young people, the findings of which have been published in Media, Culture & Society, the Journal of Youth Studies and Media International Australia.
Josie Reade is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include the body, gender, youth and social media. Josie's doctoral research takes up a feminist new materialist approach to explore women's lived experiences and embodied practices of posting and engaging with fitspo (fitness inspiration) content on Instagram. Her work has been published in New Media & Society.
Christian S. Ritter is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Media and Communication at Karlstad University, Sweden. Christian held fellowships at the Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture, Tallinn University, and in the Department of Social Anthropology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He has conducted long-term fieldwork in Estonia, Ireland, Norway, Singapore, Turkey and the United Kingdom. He is a co-chair of the working group on Migration and Mobility, International Society of Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF). His work was published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion, Qualitative Research, Anthropology of the Middle East and Tourism Geographies. He is the author of the book Locating the Influencer: Place and Platform in Global Tourism (Emerald, forthcoming).
Navid Sabet is a Social Researcher with an interest in education, media, creative arts and social theory. In addition to his research, he works as a Teacher, Learning Designer and Creative Practitioner.
Clare Southerton is a Lecturer in Digital Technology and Pedagogy in the School of Education at La Trobe University. Her research explores how social media platforms and other digital technologies are used for learning and sharing knowledge. Her work has explored digital youth cultures, surveillance and privacy and digital health education. She is a co-author of The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis (De Gruyter, 2021) and a co-editor of the forthcoming book Researching Contemporary Wellness Cultures (Emerald, 2024). Her work has been published in New Media & Society, Social Media + Society and the International Journal of Communication.
Rowan Wilken is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication and an Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His research is focused on mobile and locative media, media and communication infrastructures and digital media platforms. His most recent books include Bodies and Mobile Media (Polity, 2023, with Ingrid Richardson), Everyday Data Cultures (Polity, 2022, with Jean Burgess, Kath Albury, and Anthony McCosker) and Wi-Fi (Polity, 2021, with Julian Thomas and Ellie Rennie).
Acknowledgements
Collating a book and writing chapters about the ‘leftovers’ of digital research often means working in our ‘spare’ time. We thank our contributors for enthusiastically returning to their excess data amidst the demands of life and work and for their continued interest in the project over a number of years.
Natalie and Ingrid would also like thank the team at Emerald Publishing for their patience and support and our colleagues at the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) where the idea for this book first sparked into life.
