Digital platforms as socio-cultural artifacts: developing digital methods for cultural research

Social media platforms are increasingly looked at as means to investigate social phenomena like collective events, issues or causes. Digital methods – techniques exclusively focused on online data and shaped by the environment hosting these have become part parcel of investigations, often approaching hybrid assemblages users, infrastructures, algorithms. In its ‘online groundness’, this type digital research, however, tends skim over socio-cultural, contextual dimension both wider uses practices. paper, we advance a threefold contribution aimed sparking future efforts address limitation aligning inquiry with contemporary epistemological debates that counter universalistic views data. First, question degree which can inform investigations Second, paradigm addresses socio-cultural artifacts rather than assemblages. Finally, reflecting how accessed, handled, explored 9,000 Instagram visuals around 400,000 Facebook comments understand influences middle class understandings food consumption in Brazil South Africa, illustrate way design culturally sensitive research built ‘quanti-quali’