ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the principles of mediated discourse analysis and explains how they can help us understand the ways technology can influence our study of the humanities, as well as the ways the humanities can offer insights into our encounters with technology, by reframing questions about research and knowledge as questions about the role of mediation in our understanding of the world. To illustrate these principles, it presents an analysis of stories told by people involved in the Quantified Self movement about the way they use technology to understand themselves. The way technological mediation shapes what we research and how we go about it is explored on three dimensions: the ontological dimension (how mediation shapes what we see as real), the epistemological dimension (how it shapes the social construction of knowledge) and the axiological dimension (how it shapes the way we treat other people). The chapter ends with a discussion of how tools and techniques from mediated discourse analysis can be combined with other approaches to the digital humanities.
