ABSTRACT
Digital epidemiography is an ethnographic approach to studying internet virals and digital epidemics generated during moments of disruptive change in society. As a world-making project, digital epidemiographers map the seeming chaos of the internet to unpack the drama and dramatization of a big bang event by exercising field devices of viral world-making, rhizomatic searching and mind mapping. Conceiving of viral worlds as affective flows within a sociomaterial assemblage, digital epidemiography shifts focus from situated and localized modes of analysis and equips ethnographers with the tools to qualitatively problematize the conditions and consequences of big bang moments at a global scale. In doing so, digital epidemiography brings an affective, emic, and qualitative sensibility to the study of dynamic phenomena unfolding in digitally mediated spaces.
