Datastructuring—Organizing and curating digital traces into action (original) (raw)
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Simondon on Datafication A Techno-Cultural Method, Digital Culture & Society, 2:2, 2016
This article proposes the techno-cultural workshop as an innovative method for opening up the materiality of computational media and data flows in order to increase understanding of the socio-cultural and political-economic dimensions of datafication. Building upon the critical, creative hacker ethos of technological engagement, and the collective practice of the hackathon, the techno-cultural workshops is directed at humanities researchers and social and cultural theorists. We conceptually frame this method via Simondon as a practice-led opportunity to rethink the contested relationship between the human, nature and technology, with a view to challenging social and cultural theory that ignores the human reality of the technical object. We outline an exemplar techno-cultural workshop which explored mobile apps as i) an opportunity to use new digital tools for empirical research, and ii) as technical objects and elements for better understanding their social and cultural dimensions. We see political efficacy in the techno-cultural method not only in augmenting critical and creative agency, but as a practical exploration of the concept of data technicity, an inexhaustible relationality that exceeds the normative and regulatory utility of the data we generate and can be linked anew into collective capacities to act.
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Media and Communication, 2023
The datafication and platformization of social processes further the overall shift from an open, public, and decentralized internet towards a private and siloed realm that establishes power asymmetries between those who provide data and those who own, trade, and control data. The ongoing process of datafying societies embraces the logics of aggregation and automation that increasingly negotiate transactions between markets and social entities, informing governance systems, institutions, and public discourse. This thematic issue presents a collection of articles that tackle the political economy of datafication from three main perspectives: (a) digital media infrastructures and its actors, data structures, and markets; (b) the articulation of data power, public access to information, data privacy, and the risks of citizens in a datafied society; and (c) the policies and regulations for effective, independent media institutions and data sovereignty. It concludes with a reflection on the role of media and communication scholarship when studying sociotechnical processes controlled by giant technological companies.
Sociology Compass, 2020
The prominence of data and data technologies in society, such as algorithms, social media, mobile technology, and artificial intelligence, have heralded numerous claims of the revolutionary potential of these systems. From public policy, to business management, to scientific research, a “data-driven” society is apparently imminent – or currently happening - where “objective” and asocial data systems are believed to be comprehensively improving human life. Through a review of existing sociological literature, in this article we critically examine the relationship between data and society, and propose a new model for understanding these dynamics. Drawing on Hayles’ (1999:313) conceptualisation of the “informatic”, we argue the relationship between data and society can be understood as representing the interaction of several different social trends around data; that of Data Interfaces (that connect individuals to digital contexts), Data Circulation (trends in the movement and storage of data), and Data Abstraction (data manipulation practices). Data and data technologies are founded to be entwined and embedded in numerous social relationships, and while not all are fair and equitable relationships, there is ample evidence of the deeply social nature of data across many streams of social life. Our three-part informatic framework allows these complex relationships to be understood in the social dynamic through which they are witnessed and experienced.
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2018
It is now widely accepted that data are oiling the twenty-first century (Toonders 2014). Data gathering and tracking are practically universal, and datafication (the quantification of aspects of life previously experienced in qualitative, non-numeric form, such as communication, relationships, health and fitness, transport and mobility, democratic participation, leisure and consumption) is a transformation disrupting the social world in all its forms (Couldry 2016). Statistics confirm the assertion that the datafication of almost everything is growing relentlessly: in 2012 it was claimed that 90% of the world’s data had been created in the previous two years (IBM 2012), and a future 40% annual rise in data generation has been estimated (Manyika et al. 2011). Less commonly noted is the place of everyday experience in the machine of datafication. The Berliner Gazette (nd) has claimed that 75% of these newly available data are by-products of people’s everyday activities, and Michael an...
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Big Data & Society, 2019
Data activism, promoting new forms of civic and political engagement, has emerged as a response to problematic aspects of datafication that include tensions between data openness and data ownership, and asymmetries in terms of data usage and distribution. In this article, we discuss MyData, a data activism initiative originating in Finland, which aims to shape a more sustainable citizen-centric data economy by means of increasing individuals’ control of their personal data. Using data gathered during long-term participant-observation in collaborative projects with data activists, we explore the internal tensions of data activism by first outlining two different social imaginaries – technological and socio-critical – within MyData, and then merging them to open practical and analytical space for engaging with the socio-technical futures currently in the making. While the technological imaginary favours data infrastructures as corrective measures, the socio-critical imaginary questions the effectiveness of technological correction. Unpacking them clarifies the kinds of political and social alternatives that different social imaginaries ascribe to the notions underlying data activism, and highlights the need to consider the social structures in play. The more far-reaching goal of our exercise is to provide practical and analytical resources for critical engagement in the context of data activism. By merging technological and socio-critical imaginaries in the work of reimagining governing structures and knowledge practices alongside infrastruc- tural arrangements, scholars can depart from the most obvious forms of critique, influence data activism practice, and formulate data ethics and data futures.
Deconstructing datafication's brave new world
As World Economic Forum's definition of personal data as 'the new " oil " – a valuable resource of the 21st century' shows, large-scale data processing is increasingly considered the defining feature of contemporary economy and society. Commercial and governmental discourse on data frequently argues its benefits, and so legitimates its continuous and large-scale extraction and processing as the starting point for developments in specific industries, and potentially as the basis for societies as a whole. Against the background of the General Data Protection Regulation, this article unravels how general discourse on data covers over the social practices enabling collection of data, through the analysis of high-profile business reports and case studies of health and education sectors. We show how conceptualisation of data as having a natural basis in the everyday world protects data collection from ethical questioning while endorsing the use and free flow of data within corporate control, at the expense of its potentially negative impacts on personal autonomy and human freedom.
Simondon on Datafication. A Techno-Cultural Method
Digital Culture & Society, 2016
This article proposes the techno-cultural workshop as an innovative method for opening up the materiality of computational media and data flows and order to increase understanding of the socio-cultural and political-economic dimensions of datafication. Building upon the critical, creative hacker ethos of technological engagement, and the collective practice of the hackathon, the techno-cultural workshops is directed at humanities researchers and social and cultural theorists. We conceptually frame this method via Simondon as a practice-led opportunity to rethink the contested relationship between the human, nature and technology, with a view to challenging social and cultural theory that ignores the human reality of the technical object. We outline an exemplar techno-cultural workshop which explored mobile apps as i) an opportunity to use new digital tools for empirical research, and ii) as technical objects and elements for better understanding their social and cultural dimensions....
The Datafied Society. Studying Culture through Data
2017
A few years back we embarked on an expedition into the rapidly transforming landscape of data research, the narratives of big data and the practices emerging with novel data resources, tools and new directions of social and cultural inquiry. This book represents our own experiences and impressions of this journey. We were out there on unfamiliar and at times even uncharted territory. Often we depended on the help of more learned colleagues who generously shared their knowledge, gave us directions or helped with problems. Many of them became authors for this book and we would like to thank them for trusting us with collecting their contributions and presenting them in a joint volume. The editors wish to thank the Utrecht Data School staff Thomas Boeschoten, Irene Westra, Iris Muis, Daniela van Geenen and Gerwin van Schie for their input and for providing an intellectually stimulating work environment. With the Utrecht Data School we have created a place where ambitious and enthusiastic students can meet to join us in this exploration. We are grateful for having the rare opportunity of conducting research together with students from whom we can learn so much and whose insatiable curiosity is an inspiration as well as a constant reminder of why we became teachers in the first place. Our gratitude extends also to the Institute of Cultural Inquiry and the open access fund at Utrecht University for enabling us to make this book open access. A special thanks to William Uricchio, Fernando van der Vlist and Eef Masson for their helpful comments and advice at various stages of the editing process. Finally, we are particularly grateful to Nicolás López Coombs for helping us with the editing and the formatting of the book, but most importantly for keeping an eye on our timeline. Mirko Tobias Schäfer & Karin van Es Anywhere but in their office, 2016 This book is an important contribution towards meeting the challenges of the platform-driven, data-fuelled world in which we have all come to live.