This study offers a first exploratory critique of digital tools' socio-technical affordances in terms of support for narrative creation by media researchers. We reflect on narrative creation processes of research, writing and story composition by Media Studies and Humanities scholars as well as media professionals (journalists, television/image researchers, documentary filmmakers, digital storytellers, media innovation experts) working with cross-media and audiovisual sources, and the pivotal ways in which digital tools inform these processes of search and storytelling. Our study proposes to add to the existing body of user-centered Digital Humanities research by presenting the insights of a cross-disciplinary user study. This involves, broadly speaking, researchers studying audiovisual materials in a co-creative design process, set to fine-tune and further develop a digital tool that supports audiovisual research through exploratory search. This article focuses on how researchers – in both academic as well as professional settings – use digital search technologies in their daily work practices to discover and explore (crossmedia, digital) audiovisual archival material, specifically when studying 'disruptive' media events . We focus on three user types, (1) Media Studies researchers; (2) Humanities researchers that use digitized audiovisual materials as a source for research and (3) media professionals who need to retrieve audiovisual materials for audiovisual text productions. Our study primarily provides insights into the search, retrieval and narrative creation practices of these user groups. However, a user study such as this in which qualitative methods (co-creative design sessions, focus groups, research diaries, questionnaires) are combined, affords fine-grained insights, and informs conclusions about the role of digital tools in meaning-creation processes around working with audiovisual sources. Reference to our related journal article: Berber Hagedoorn and Sabrina Sauer, ‘The Researcher as Storyteller: Using Digital Tools for Search and Storytelling with Audio-Visual (AV) Materials’, submitted for review to VIEW: Journal of European Television History and Culture (2018)

1. TheMediaResearcherasStoryteller:
WorkingwithDigitizedAudiovisualSources
dr. Berber Hagedoorn
Assistant Professor Media Studies, University of Groningen
https://berberhagedoorn.wordpress.com
b.hagedoorn@rug.nl
Slides on SlideShare: Berber Hagedoorn

2. Recent
developments
inoursociety
 'Association society'
 Role and impact of (social) media in our daily lives

3. HaydenWhite:
historiansare
storytellers

4. Specificactorsinthemedia
(newscasters,governments,
institutions)usemedia
eventstobuildnarrativesin
linewiththeirownpolitical,
economicorcultural
purposes.  Events, as they unfold in the media, may correspond to
long-term social phenomena, and the way in which such
events are 'constructed' has particular connotations
(Jiménez-Martínez, 2016).

5. IngridVolkmerin
NewsinPublic
Memory(2006)
 'One could argue that nations live not only on 'media time'
… but in new, varied, multi-directional flow-frameworks of
time/space coordinates: spectacular political affairs take
place in global media prime time, are formatted as
'breaking news', and are delivered into living rooms
around the world via a network of about 400 satellites,
instantaneously and continuously demanding actions and
reactions. Industrial nations, developing as well as
transnational nations, governments and individuals live
in a new global symbolic space, which refines former
notions of 'distance' and 'proximity ' by a constant
presence of crises and conflicts, associated by never-ending
stream of 'contest-', 'conquest-,' and 'coronation-' type
media events (Dayan and Katz, 1992).'

6. Studyofmedia
texts/representations
i.r.t. mediamakers
(industrialactorsand
memorymakers)

7. But:
mediaresearchersare
storytellerstoo
NB: Focus on media researchers = both scholars and
professionals who work with, search for/with, and
learn about (digitized) audiovisual materials

8. Inthisstudy,themediaresearcherandtheir
interactionwithdigitaltoolsisourobjectofresearch
StudybyBerberHagedoorn(ResearchFellowshipSoundand
Vision)&SabrinaSauer(MediaNowproject);seealsoour
follow-upstudy(CLARIAH/DIVE)NarrativeDisruption
https://www.clariah.nl/projecten/research-pilots/nardis

9. The
challenge:
 Sonja de Leeuw has discussed the history and
challenges for European television history since
the dawn of its 'archival turn' in the opening
article of VIEW, arguing:
 'Institutions and digital libraries are
challenged to meet the needs of users, to
construct new interfaces not only in-house
but also through online platforms. This
requires fresh conceptual thinking about
topical relations and medium-specific
curatorial approaches as well as user-led
navigation and the production of meaning.'
(my emphasis)

10. Themethod:
Usercentered
approachof
co-creation
Mixed qualitative methods (co-creative design
sessions, focus groups, questionnaires, research
diaries, users visualized ideas on posters)
are combined in an iterative approach

11. The study
 Co-creative design sessions focused on media
researchers (68 in total for VIEW research paper),
particularly for mediated and historical 'events',
special focus: archival and Linked Data (Sound
and Vision)
1. Media Studies researchers
2. Humanities researchers that use digitized
AV for research
3. Media professionals who retrieve AV for text
productions (e.g. journalists, image
researchers, documentary makers, digital
storytellers, media innovation experts)

12. Our focus
points
 Reflections on exploratory search, narrative creation
processes (research, writing, story composition),
information retrieval and pivotal ways in which digital
tools inform processes of search and storytelling
around cross-media AV sources.
 How searching for a story, shapes the story:
understanding search and retrieval habits grants
insights in production cultures, user interaction with
search technologies, craft and creative user practices.

13. GaryMarchionini,
'ExploratorySearch:
FromFindingto
Understanding'
(2006)
See also this video on DIVE+: Explorative Search for Digital
Humanities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI3MPiU9rjo

14. http://diveplus.beeldengeluid.nl

16. • RQ1: How do media researchers (scholars and
professionals) appropriate search tools to ask
and answer new questions, and apply digital
methods, around working with AV sources.
• RQ2: How does exploratory search support
media researchers in their study of how
'disruptive' media 'events' are constructed across
different media and instilled with specific
cultural or political meanings?
• We advocate a DH research approach in which
questions such as why specific data is collected,
for what purpose, and within what context – the
so-called 'politics of archiving' – are addressed
from a critical (Humanities) perspective.

17. Userinteraction
withDIVE+search
browser,MediaSuite
andselectedonline
audiovisualrepositories
OBSERVED
 We observed how users used the search browser by giving
users search tasks - 'goal-oriented activities carried out
using search systems.’ (Wildemuth et al, 2014). We
developed/tailored tasks to research situations and in line
with recommendations for task design
COLLECTED
 We asked users written and verbal feedback about user
experience (questionnaires with open questions and
research diaries)
ASKED
 We collected user perspectives on the role of digital
search technologies in Humanities research (e.g. in the
shape of user-generated posters)

18. Co-creationsessions
 What kind of 'narrative' do researchers (with varied skills in
working with AV) create when (1) doing research into and (2)
learning about events, with AV?
 We study and question the 'translation' of AV data on
different platforms into narratives and meaning making.
 What is the role of provenance, serendipity, novelty,
diversity…

19. Exampletask1:
“Imaginethatamediacompanyisgoingto
produceprogrammesaboutJakarta,Beatrix
(Queen/PrincessoftheNetherlands),Islam,or
Watersnoodramp(NorthSeaFlood).Yourgoal
istoproposeaninterestingangleforoneof
theprogrammes.”

20. Exploratorysearchis
regardedasiterative
Researchprocessesintoeventsusingexploratory
search,visualizedasanarrative-MediaStudies
researcher,respondent(resp.)57)

21. Analysis ofSearch
Narratives and
Audiovisual
Narratives
 Media researchers (both media scholars and media
professionals) are, in fact, storytellers. Our research
outlines how researchers build narratives, and makes
the role of the researcher and digital search tools in the
construction of narratives explicit. This highlights the
interpretative aspects of research, and research is
always being interpreted in certain (social) contexts.
Practices of search, research and retrieval, too, frame a
certain version of reality through the construction of a
narrative:
 'The researcher is framing the narrative by choosing
which sources to use and not to use' – Media Studies
researcher [resp. 61] (our emphasis);
 'Media researchers acquire information from multiple
searches and piece this information together in order to
find similarities, patterns, and discrepancies. These are
then put together in a storytelling format' – Media
Studies researcher [resp.] (our emphasis)

22. Analysis ofSearch
Narratives and
Audiovisual
Narratives
 Exploratory search = steep learning curve
 Across all user groups, respondents expressed how
exploratory search and the DIVE+ platform
functionalities and affordances and can help in
guiding the user, and even aid in raising new
research questions. Here, exploratory search is
considered by our users, as demanding narrow
research questions.
 'The added value is that you can determine (...) what your topic
is going to be about based on the available research data' – Media
Studies researcher [resp. 54]

23. Analysis ofSearch
Practices andTool
Criticism
 Using exploratory search during research question
formulation (trigger, further refinement, even to develop):
 'Exploratory search can result in new perspectives and approaches which
in turn benefit the initial research' – Media Studies researcher [resp. 55]
 Humanities researchers indicated how the 'randomness' of
source selection opened up chances for researchers to find
sources that other methods might not reveal, and the
potential of Linked Data and related entities to illustrate
context.
 Contextual understanding is central: respondents identify
that exploratory search adds not necessarily to the actual
research project, but to the understanding of the topic they
are researching.
 'Overall, we do believe that exploratory search is useful but perhaps to
create a general understanding of the topic you are researching, rather
than to find specific information that could answer your research question'
– Media Studies researcher [resp. 56]

24. Analysis ofSearch
Practices andTool
Criticism
 Oppertunities for serendipitious browsing
 In this process, for media professionals specifically, the
research question is translated into searching for an
angle on a topic (depends on the perceived audience of
the programme or text the professionals are creating)
 Professionals argue that their expressed need to give
users more control over search filters, stems directly
from the fact that in their professional practice, they
are used to search interfaces with many, many search
fields:
 'The useful thing about many search fields is that you can focus
very nicely on where you start and end in the definition of the
field' – Media professional [resp. 3]
 Prior experience, again, is thus an important factor
impacting the interpretation and selection experience.

25. Exploringwith
DIVE+
 The tools that are used for (re)search and retrieval,
inherently provide narrative elements (possible
subjectivity of research: beyond the researcher
him/herself):
 'Meaning is attributed to the way one searches and conducts
research' – Media Studies researcher [resp. 58]
 'The meaning is formed by the search tools you use and the way that
you search' – Media Studies researcher [resp. 64]
 'Real connections still have to be made in an old and traditional
way... in the mind of the researcher' – Humanities researcher [resp.
14]

26. Narrativesin
DIVE+
 Subsequently, the resulting search or narrative path, which
represents a mediated event as a (more or less) lucid narrative,
is also not regarded as neutral:
 'Narrative is a framing tool that helps shape information' – Media Studies
researcher [resp. 59](our emphasis)
 '[Narrative is] a way of framing information and events, that makes certain
elements strange and normalizes others, creating something like a story’ –
Media Studies researcher [resp. 65]
 'I believe that the narrative metaphor does not really apply to my research,
because I do not produce sequential data, but rather a metastructure, which
cannot be told as a story' – Humanities researcher [resp. 56]
 'The list of narratives is very helpful, but does not really yield a story. More
like a storage of the search process' – Media professional [resp. 2] (our
emphasis)
 'I mainly found general information and a further search for a relationship
with an event did not offer a satisfactory outcome' – Media professional
[resp. 4] (our emphasis)

27. Awareness of
howthetool
intervenes inthe
research process?
 Prior media research has argued how the transmission and
portrayal of any event is necessarily dependent on the
'attitude' or 'demeanour' of the broadcasting institution:
'[n]o event is value-free and neither is its mediation or
interpretation. Historically, and across cultures and
borders, values change.' (Bignell & Fickers 2008)
 However, this seems to be problematic when it comes to
investigating and generating narratives in an exploratory
search tool such as DIVE+ – because currently, although
exploratory search and the visualization of the search path
can support narrative creation, researchers currently do
not grasp how the tool mediates an 'attitude' or 'demeanor'.

28. Analysis ofSearch
Narratives and
Audiovisual
Narratives
 Professionals also found that not every click should be
saved in the exploration path, which not only points to
giving the user more control over search functionalities
like filters, as discussed above, but also more control over
the lucid narrative that is generated (in the form of the
exploration or search path), which can be exported offline
and saved on the researcher's own desktop:
 'Ideally this functionality [saving the search log] will not
simply save my entire click history, but will retain only
relevant results' – Media professional [resp. 7] (our
emphasis);
 'It would be more useful if DIVE[+] did not save everything
itself, but only on the request of the user' – Media
professional [resp. 2] (our emphasis).
 Our research also indicates how these skills, as well as
awareness of how such skills contribute to understanding
for (1) learning and (2) doing research, can be better
supported.

29. Trust
 Based on our study, 'trust' in the search engine,
browser and archive, is usually based on prior
experience. As a respondent describes:
 'Even a database has a hidden agenda (...) Can I
trust the algorithm?' – Media professional [resp. 3]
(our emphasis).

30. Combiningthesemethodsin
aniterativedesignapproach,
affordsself-reflective,fine-
grainedinsightsandleadsto
recommendationsto
incrementallyadaptthe
exploratorysearchtoolDIVE+
 For example, we made improvements in audiovisual
annotation (also video or media annotation)

31. Digitization has changed work practices of
media researchers.
Media researchers increasingly use
digital archives to create media texts.
This means that retrieving AV requires in-
depth knowledge of how to find sources
digitally. There are also, sometimes steep,
learning curves.
It is in interaction that we learn most
about this.

32. Focusonthe'userside'ofDH,
specifically, howHumanities
researchersappropriate and
domesticate searchtoolstoask
andanswernewquestions,
andapplydigitalmethods.

33. But:whoisthe
storyteller?

34. Intheendit'sallabout
understandingtheinteraction
betweenuser/researcherand
toolduringsearch,retrievaland
narrativecreation,andhowthis
affectstheprocessesofmeaning
makingandinterpretation.

35. Questions?
 b.hagedoorn@rug.nl
 http://berberhagedoorn.wordpress.com
 Slides on SlideShare: Berber Hagedoorn
 CLARIAH Research Pilot Narrativizing Disruption:
How exploratory search can support media
researchers to interpret 'disruptive' media events as
lucid narratives with dr. Sabrina Sauer