Feedwork: Rethinking Ethnography for the Algorithmic Feed

This paper presents feedwork as a distinct mode of digital ethnography that names a specific configuration of research practices on social media feeds. It builds on the researcher's lived experience of the messy and volatile feed and contextualises it within the long tradition of ethnographic approaches. By proposing a new term, this paper intends to create a methodological shorthand to address the specific opportunities and challenges of the social media feed as a mutable research field.