14.11.2025 Työpajat  Workshops

Multimodal Puzzles: Rethinking Methods and Analysis Using Creative Practices

Time: Friday November 14th, 10am-12pm
Format:  Tieteiden talo, Arokallio room, on-site only
Organizer: Juulia Heikkinen (University of Helsinki), Amina Ally (NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Register: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/137383/lomake.html

Research work, particularly in a digitally-mediated world, increasingly involves engaging with multiple modes of data and their entanglements. Multimodality can speak to a variety of different aspects of the research process such as the phenomenon of study itself, the research material, the research site and environment, or the research tools employed. Different modalities invite their own ontological and epistemological questions, as well as distinct analytical possibilities and limitations. How can we begin to make sense of and meaningfully work with multimodality in our research practices? What does this require in practice, and what challenges and opportunities emerge along the way?

This workshop invites scholars to collectively “drop in the middle” of research process and explore these questions through addressing research work as a multimodal puzzle:

What then does it take to have something to say? It takes two things. The first is a puzzle, something about the social world that is off, unusual, unexpected, or novel. The second is a clever idea that responds to, or interprets or solves that puzzle. Everything else – the methods, the literature, the description of data – is really just window dressing. The heart of good work is a puzzle and an idea. - Andrew Abbot, Methods of Discovery

We invite participants to bring their own multimodal research ‘puzzles’, addressing that which is unusual, unexpected or unresolved in their work. Hosts, Juulia and Amina, aim to facilitate a discussion with participants to collectively reflect on how we think-with and make-with our data. In this workshop participants will reflect on the methodological and theoretical implications of multimodality as it appears in data, particular research topics, and various theoretical perspectives. 

Participants are encouraged to bring resources to share with others, whether tools currently being used or that have been tried and discarded that may be useful for alternative research contexts. For example, hosts have experimented with tools such as digital animation, and HyperRESEARCH software to address multimodal inquiry, particularly drawing on posthumanist methodological approaches (Mol, 1999; Maclure, 2013).

This session offers a welcoming, collaborative space to share resources and methods. If you are drawing on posthumanist approaches, creative methodologies or in the process of analyzing multimodal data, please join us and we encourage you to bring materials and your experiences to share as contributions to a collective learning space. As part of this workshop we join together to venture on the path of the following inquiries:

1. What kinds of multimodal ‘puzzles’ emerge across different research topics and practices?
2. How do logics of representation or logics of assemblage influence our approaches to multimodality?

This is a space to share the messiness of your in-process multimodal research ‘puzzle’, expand your curiosity, and to bring an openness to experiment with methodological practices

Tampere Satellite Seminar: Towards Socially Sustainable Platforms (SoSu)

Time: November 14th, 9am--4pm
Format: hybrid: Paidia in Tampere (Kansikatu 3 / Nokia Arena/ Directions to Paidia at the bottom of the page), or Snellmania in Helsinki (Unioninkatu 37, 00170 Helsinki; Huone krs 1 etuovesta sisään ja oikealle.)

Organizer: Reeta Pöyhtäri, Kaarina Nikunen, Paula Haara, Kari Söderqvist (Media Studies, Tampere University) & Minna Vigren (LUT University) & Aleksi Knuutila (workshop host at University of Helsinki/Rajapinta)
Register:  sign up: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/dRqaeqJxtN, deadline for registration is 3 November 2025.

Rajapintapäivien yhteydessä tarjolla myös satelliittitapahtuma Tampereella! This seminar focuses on ways in which a more socially sustainable digital environment could be brought into being. What is social sustainability in digital environment and on digital platforms? How can we achieve it?Tampere Universities’ Media Studies Research Group hosts a one-day seminar on November 14th 2025, 9 am – 16 pm, at Paidia (Kansikatu 3 / Nokia Arena/ Directions to Paidia at the bottom of the page). The event can also be followed in Helsinki (see “In our workshops” below for details).

The seminar consists of two keynote speeches and workshops: Professor Eugenia Siapera, from University College Dublin, asks in her keynote speech if AI can be sustainable. Prof. Siapera approaches this question through the economic, environmental, and societal dimensions. Her talk is based on early findings from a Horizon Europe Forsee project. Professor Helen Kennedy, from University of Sheffield, asks in her keynote speech what a good digital society looks like and how we get there. Prof. Kennedy approaches these questions by taking as a starting point the critiques of digital developments presented by social scientists, humanities scholars, and digital rights advocates and activists. Her talk draws on experiences from the ESRC Digital Good Network.

In our workshops, seminar participants on site at Tampere get to discuss and devise solutions, share knowledge on making an impact, and envision a more equitable and socially sustainable future.

The keynote lectures and the workshops can also be attended in a satellite event in Helsinki at Rajapintapäivät (workshop location: University of Helsinki, Snellmania, Unioninkatu 37, 1st floor). The keynote speeches without workshop participation can be followed online. The link will only be provided upon registration. Sign up as a guest for our event: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/dRqaeqJxtNThe aim of the event is to think about the ways in which research can enhance a more sustainable and fair digital environment.

Our aim is to bring together researchers who are working in projects that explore, in different ways, questions around social sustainability, regulation, equality, ethics and fairness related to digital environment, particularly to digital platforms and the Internet. Since there is already a substantial amount of research on the problems and concerns around digital, datafied environment, this event seeks to look more into the different alternatives and solutions - particularly exploring the ways in which researchers could enter the debate and make an impact: how can we make use of our expertise; what kind of collaborations could we further; what kind of creative research activities could we pursue? What insights from your research and experiences with these themes would you like to share with the audience?

PROGRAM
Towards socially sustainable platforms SoSu-event timetable in Tampere*:
8.45               Doors open, coffee serving
 9.15                SoSu-team introductions: What do we mean by Social Sustainability in digital environment & the plan for the day
 9.30                Keynote 1, Eugenia Siapera: Sustainable AI? Contradictions, Costs, and the Limits of Governance
 10.30             Workshop 1, SoSu-team: Reimagining solutions and governance
 11.30            Lunch break (lunch not provided)
 12.30             Keynote 2, Helen Kennedy: Reflections and challenges from the Digital Good Network: Exploring what a good digital society looks like and how we get there
 13.30             Workshop 2, SoSu-team: Advancing towards Digital Social Sustainability
 15.00             Discussions and reflections
 16.00             Closing remarks*The satellite event in Helsinki at Rajapintapäivät has the same program without coffee being served.

This event is funded by DigiSus Research Platform. SoSu-team: Reeta Pöyhtäri, Kaarina Nikunen, Paula Haara, Kari Söderqvist (Media Studies, Tampere University) & Minna Vigren (LUT University) & Aleksi Knuutila (workshop host at University of Helsinki/Rajapinta)
Contact: kari.soderqvist@tuni.fi; reeta.poyhtari@tuni.fi, tel. 050-4739394; kaarina.nikunen@tuni.fi, tel. 040-1904094

SEMINAR WEBSITE (INCLUDING ABSTRACTS): https://research.tuni.fi/digisus/towards-socially-sustainable-platforms-seminar-2025/