An aspect of the media landscape that has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the increasing role of media organisations in presenting and undertaking their own, often complex, data analyses. In this cross-post Irineo Cabreros, discusses…
Category: Data Politics
Exposing the Costs of Uncounting, a review essay
What does it mean to be ‘uncounted’? It means that the uncounted – an event, an individual, a group – is invisible, absent from a world built on data. In this review essay, Mariel McKone Leonard examines two recent books, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez and The Uncounted by Alex Cobham, that take up the task of documenting the true extent of uncounting and … Continued
Simple data visualisations have become key to communicating about the COVID-19 pandemic, but we know little about their impact
If you had mentioned ‘flattening the curve’ in 2019, chances are you would have been met with a blank stare. However, almost halfway through 2020, the language of data visualisation has become commonplace, and data visualisations are widely used to communicate about the pandemic to the public. However, as Helen Kennedy observes, their power to … Continued
Book Review: The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism by Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias
In The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism, Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias argue that the quantified world is not a new frontier, but rather the continuation and expansion of both colonialism and capitalism. This book shines in using the theory underpinning the idea of data colonialism to articulate sites of resistance, writes […]
Book Review: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff offers a comprehensive account of the new form of economic oppression that has crept into our lives, challenging the boundless hype that has often surrounded the activities of modern technology companies. While the book presents a decent history of the rise of surveillance […]
Book Review: This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsev
In This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, Peter Pomerantsev takes readers on a gripping journey through the disinformation age, drawing on his own family history as well as encounters with numerous figures positioned on both sides of the information spectrum: those working to manipulate our perceptions and those engaged in the struggle for a more facts-based public sphere. Ignas Kalpokas highly […]
Tale of the converted: how complex social problems have made me question the use of data in driving impact
In practice the way in which research impacts and influences policy and society is often thought to be a rational, ordered and linear process. Whilst this might represent a ‘common sense’ understanding of research impact, in this cross-post John Burgoyne reflects on how upending the primacy of data and embracing complexity can lead to a more nuanced and effective understanding […]
Book Review: Re-Engineering Humanity by Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger
In Re-Engineering Humanity, Brett Frischmann and Evan Selinger explore how the rise of new technologies and datafication grounded in machinic rationality risk conditioning humans to become more machinic-like in turn. As the book seeks to consider how the value of the human can be protected from the consequences of data creep, it will prompt readers to look at otherwise taken-for-granted technology practices differently, writes Ignas Kalpokas. […]
Smartphone-size screens make it harder to pay attention to and understand news stories
Smartphones have become a key medium through which information of all kinds is accessed. Even a small, but significant, amount of traffic to academic journals derives from smartphones. Their increasing popularity and power, have led some to argue they have an important role to play in maintaining an informed public. However, Johanna Dunaway and Stuart Soroka argue that the smaller […]
Bad News – A psychological ‘vaccine’ against fake news
‘Fake news’ and the manipulation of news media have become a fixture of the current political moment. Whereas, attempts have been made to regulate fake news and to direct internet users to more authoritative sources of information, these initiatives have also come under criticism for being overzealous and a break on press freedoms. In the post, Sander van der Linden […]