Defining Trauma on Twitter: An Autoethnographic Sketch
May 18, 2016 11:24 AM   Subscribe

The article - Defining Trauma on Twitter: An Autoethnographic Sketch is a recently published peer reviewed journal article that is under 140 characters long. Making it probably the first tweet to be published in an academic journal (and perhaps?) the first article whose abstract is longer than its contents.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory (41 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
The article itself is pay-walled, and the library at the major research university where I work does not have access to the journal. A cursory glance at the author's Twitter feed didn't turn anything up. Would someone with access to the article care to offer a summary of the autoethnographic sketch in question?
posted by jedicus at 11:32 AM on May 18, 2016 [10 favorites]


I could have included the sci-hub link to the article but did not knowif that would be frowned upon
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 11:34 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


140 characters is going to qualify as fair use. I quote more than that all the time.
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:36 AM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


FFS, pay-walled, WTF?

(21 characters)
posted by maryr at 11:36 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


where's the tweet? and what's the point of posting a paywalled article without the tweet?
posted by andrewcooke at 11:37 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


HERE IT IS EVERYONE:

Trauma is what sticks in the aftermath of what happened. Individuals become online users because that world affords space for expression.
posted by theodolite at 11:37 AM on May 18, 2016 [21 favorites]


But can it be ken in Mad Ape Den?
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:38 AM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


"Daniel did Belshazzar in with less than 20 characters, what's wrong with us?"
posted by pyramid termite at 11:38 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have a truly marvelous peer reviewed journal article of this autoethnographic sketch which this Tweet is too limited t
posted by Rock Steady at 11:43 AM on May 18, 2016 [19 favorites]


Hm, was it ever published on Twitter? I don't think I'm prepared to label all sub-141 character writings as Tweets quite yet. #getoffmylawn.
posted by ODiV at 11:43 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


$2 a word doesn't seem reasonable.
posted by cj_ at 11:46 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


peer reviewed indeed
posted by gertzedek at 11:50 AM on May 18, 2016


140 characters is going to qualify as fair use. I quote more than that all the time.

But probably not as a percentage of the entire work. Fair use resists bright line rules.

Anyway, on review of the article in question, I'm not sure I'd call it an autoethnographic sketch. There's no personal experience here, either of trauma or online expression. That could have been written by someone who had never been online or experienced trauma themselves, writing only as an outside observer.

It also requires a bit of reading between the lines: "Individuals become online users because that world affords space for expression [of all kinds? of trauma? of 'what happened'?]"
posted by jedicus at 11:51 AM on May 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


But can it be ken in Mad Ape Den?

Bad shit from the past lasts a while and shows up as tweets 'cause that's one way for the mute to have a voice.
posted by The White Hat at 11:56 AM on May 18, 2016


This is some nonsense stunt research that would be better served as a forward to the book the author says that the paper is based on. It doesn’t seem right that you should be able to turn your abstract into a second citation.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:11 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think it's great to see that autoethnographic research remains as noteworthy and interesting regardless of the length of the text!
posted by Soi-hah at 12:14 PM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Well, I tweeted it. Let's see if I get DMCA'd!
posted by maryr at 12:33 PM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


But can it be ken in Mad Ape Den?

What about Ken from Mad Men?
posted by maryr at 12:35 PM on May 18, 2016


This is some nonsense stunt research

I'm siding with this, but I don't have context even to make that judgment. What is the stunt exposing? What's the angle here?
posted by naju at 12:38 PM on May 18, 2016


I don't have to read this! Where's the conclusion?
posted by I-baLL at 12:40 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


So, if it's not autoethnography and it's not a tweet, perhaps it's a sketch? No, I don't see any charcoal. Maybe it's a caricature or some sort of bobblehead?
posted by nequalsone at 12:40 PM on May 18, 2016


TL;DR
posted by mr.ersatz at 12:41 PM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


More seriously though, "what sticks in the aftermath of what happened" seems to be a definition of memory more than a definition of trauma.
posted by I-baLL at 12:42 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Trauma is what sticks in the aftermath of what happened

Sometimes? Maybe? Would you care to elaborate? This is nearly contentless as written and many traumatized people and trauma specialists would disagree with the statement on its face.

Individuals become online users because that world affords space for expression.

Some individuals do, in some ways, but you're going to have to back this up and provide nuance. You're also going to have to relate this to the previous sentence somehow. I would recommend writing a longer paper, with citations and further thoughts and qualifications.
posted by naju at 12:51 PM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


(Further avenues for explanation: "sticks", "aftermath", "what happened", "online users", "that world", "space", and "expression" all need to be filled out with some substance before we can evaluate any of this as meaningful or insightful)
posted by naju at 12:55 PM on May 18, 2016


Maybe I'm just too steeped in open access activism, but it's hard for me to think that the absurdity of the paywall system wasn't (at least part of) the point of this paper.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:56 PM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


the first article whose abstract is longer than its contents

Tiny Transactions on Computer Science only accepts papers for which the body is 140 characters or less.

If you're looking for really short content, this is a strong candidate, but this one cannot be beat.
posted by effbot at 1:02 PM on May 18, 2016 [10 favorites]


Steady, R. "A Critical Analysis of the Research on Underutilized Infant Footwear." MetaFilter 159671 (2016).
posted by Rock Steady at 1:11 PM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


From the article by Carol Rambo that inspired this:
A sketch is an incomplete study, by definition. Information is left out or suggested, and the mind’s eye is invited to fill in the details. Likewise, the descriptions in an autoethnographic sketch lay down lines representing something the autoethnographer observes or feels, and the reader fills in the details. Like a drawing or sketch, an autoethnography could be seen as a stagnant, closed representation of a subject, which comes to an artificial end. But like a sketch, an autoethnography could always be open for interpretation.
It sounds like the clarity problems that folks have pointed to are intentional. Rambo's point is the trite early poststructuralist one that "an “autoethnographic sketch” ... “draws out” substantive observations about the “sketchy” character of concepts such as identity, theory, self, and society." Presumably we're supposed to come away with the idea that trauma is another such concept, by nature distorted in conventional autoethnography.
posted by vathek at 1:31 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also the shortest abstract ever.

But that was actually kind of informative.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:41 PM on May 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Jesus wept.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:57 PM on May 18, 2016


(I actually think this is sort of interesting but heck if I'm going to miss the opportunity to make a joke using my dad's favorite phrase that I'm trying to incorporate into my vocabulary.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:58 PM on May 18, 2016


But is it 140 characters with references?
posted by jb at 2:13 PM on May 18, 2016


It's absolutely fucking hilarious that T&F kept a single tweet behind a paywall. You couldn't ask for a better example of how anti-knowledge and money-grubbing academic publishing has become.
posted by No-sword at 3:01 PM on May 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


effbot: There was followup research on "Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of Writer's Block"
posted by talos at 3:08 PM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


To be fair, No-sword, the tweet isn't at all representative of the other stuff that they have paywalled. I'm actually not sure you could find a more meaningless example of how online academic publishing is problematic, though there is a kind of poetry to it.
posted by vathek at 3:59 PM on May 18, 2016




eponysterical FTW
posted by sylvanshine at 8:50 PM on May 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is some nonsense stunt research

Suddenly I have a short, simple description of the four years I spent in college.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:23 AM on May 19, 2016


You couldn't ask for a better example of how anti-knowledge and money-grubbing academic publishing has become.

Elsevier, in its attempts to help bring back whooping cough, do up Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, psuedoscience and woo.

They seem to have at least one dedicated homepathy journal as well.

It occurs to me that a homeopathy journal, sufficiently diluted in a large enough research library, might actually increase wisdom and learning, but I don't think it works that way.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:23 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Are Tweets valuable? Yes! But they aren't 'scientific' and if you try to falsify it you can't do it. Try! You can't.
posted by krinklyfig at 4:51 AM on May 19, 2016


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