Compare methods

	Valuation Studies Method	Digital Methods
Field	Science Technology Studies	Science Technology Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2013	2013
Originator	Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, Fabian Muniesa, Michèle Lamont	Richard Rogers, Amsterdam Digital Methods Initiative
Type	Practice-oriented method for studying valuation	Empirical research approach for online data
Seminal source	Helgesson, C.-F., & Muniesa, F. (2013). For what it's worth: an introduction to valuation studies. Valuation Studies, 1(1), 1-10.	Rogers, R. (2013). Digital Methods. MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262018838
Aliases	Sociology of valuation, Valography, Study of evaluation practices	Follow the medium, Natively digital research, Web epistemology methods
Related	4	4
Summary	The valuation studies method treats valuation—the production, measurement, ordering, and contestation of worth—as a social practice to be studied empirically rather than a hidden mental act or a settled economic fact. Consolidated by Claes-Fredrik Helgesson and Fabian Muniesa and complemented by Michèle Lamont's comparative sociology of valuation and evaluation, it follows how rankings, metrics, prices, and evaluation procedures actually do their work, and asks how worth comes to be, by whom, with which devices, and to what effect.	Digital methods is an empirical research approach, developed by Richard Rogers and the Amsterdam Digital Methods Initiative, that takes the methods of online platforms and devices—the link, the like, the hashtag, the search engine ranking—and repurposes them for social and cultural research. Its guiding maxim is to 'follow the medium': rather than importing offline methods like the survey onto the web, the analyst learns what the medium already counts, ranks, and recommends, and turns those native operations into research instruments.