SCREENSHOT METHODOLOGIES TO COLLECT AND ANALYSE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM ADVERTISING

Abstract

This paper presents three projects where we have developed participatory digital research methods designed to extend observability of digital advertising on social media platforms and engage with users’ individual experiences with digital advertising. In each approach, participants collected instances of digital advertising from social media apps by taking screenshots or using a screen-capture mobile app. Participants also assumed active roles in the interpretation and analysis of the collected ads through dialogue with research teams in the form of SMS chats, surveys and interviews. We then critically reflect on the politics and ethics of participatory screen capture as a method that emerges as a response to ‘platform opaqueness’. Because of the lack of platform transparency, one of the only reliable ways for researchers to study advertising in these spaces is to work directly with users to capture what they see. In our projects, the practice of screenshotting facilitated scaffolded consent as participants chose the images to send and discuss with researchers. These approaches also position participants as experts on their own experience with and theories of algorithmic, digital platform advertising. We conclude by considering the significance of collected data: collections of ads that illustrate the relationships between users and digital advertising models. The ads targeted to individual users reflect platform ad models’ attempts to respond and pre-empt user engagement, and in the process, construct digital subjectivities. By co-analysing digital advertising with users, we observe the ways social media platform users and algorithmic advertising models continuously enact and react to each other.