BU Research Blog

You are warmly welcomed to this week’s research process seminar.

Using AI to build a ‘Database from Below’: reflections on collecting, coding and quantifying media reports

Experimenting with Google Notebook LM to blueprint a workflow for coding and quantifying verified information from media and organisational reports, our ‘database from below’ prototype draws from participatory media data initiatives. In this research process presentation, I will provide some background context on these data-driven initiatives and then introduce how we are attempting to use Notebook LM software to transform unstructured humanitarian and media reports into quantifiable and comparable data. Here I’ll address ethical and practical challenges, as well as opportunities.  The methods and workflow I introduce could be applied to any project seekingto curate and investigate an evidence-base using scattered media and other text-based sources. The workflow is co-designed with and for budget and time-strapped stakeholders, to work quickly and affordably, without the need for specialised coding.

Speaker bio

Professor Anna Feigenbaum is an internationally recognised expert and innovator in the fields of digital media and data storytelling, specialising in health and science communications. Her research has been funded by Google, CancerUK, the NHS, UKRI, the Wellcome Trust, British Academy, the US Embassy, and the United Nations. She is author of 50+ peer review books, chapters and articles, including Tear Gas (Verso 2017) and The Data Storytelling Workbook (Routledge 2020). She regularly leads data storytelling trainings for the NHS, local councils, NGOs and universities around the world. Her work also reaches wider audiences through public engagement and media activities.

About the research process seminar series:

The purpose of this research seminar series is different to your typical research seminar and conference presentation. Instead of presenting the results and outcomes of research, we want to share good practices around the process of doing research. This might often involve a focus on research methods but it also includes aspects of publishing, writing, time management, career management etc.

The idea here is that the speaker takes us through the anatomy of the project or approach focussing particularly on the process – the challenges, the successes, and the failures. For the audience, we walk away with a practical application of a method or approach we may not be familiar with or may not have applied in this way before. Our ambition is to make us all better researchers as a result.

15 April at 2pm on Zoom

Please register here: https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/_uKDKmLyT7OdSSHev1AjLQ

And if you can’t make it but would like the recording then please register and i will send you it.