Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231171051
Geri L. Dimas, Lauri Goldkind, R. Konrad
The social services sector, comprised of a constellation of programs meeting critical human needs, lacks the resources and infrastructure to implement data science tools. As the use of data science continues to expand, it has been accompanied by a rise in interest and commitment to using these tools for social good. This commentary examines overlooked, and under-researched limitations of data science applications in the social sector—the volume, quality, and context of the available data that currently exists in social service systems require unique considerations. We explore how the presence of small data within the social service contexts can result in extrapolation; if not properly considered, data science can negatively impact the organizations data scientists are trying to assist. We conclude by proposing three ways data scientists interested in working within the social services sector can enhance their contributions to the field: refining and leveraging available data, improving collaborations, and respecting data limitations.
{"title":"Big ideas, small data: Opportunities and challenges for data science and the social services sector","authors":"Geri L. Dimas, Lauri Goldkind, R. Konrad","doi":"10.1177/20539517231171051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231171051","url":null,"abstract":"The social services sector, comprised of a constellation of programs meeting critical human needs, lacks the resources and infrastructure to implement data science tools. As the use of data science continues to expand, it has been accompanied by a rise in interest and commitment to using these tools for social good. This commentary examines overlooked, and under-researched limitations of data science applications in the social sector—the volume, quality, and context of the available data that currently exists in social service systems require unique considerations. We explore how the presence of small data within the social service contexts can result in extrapolation; if not properly considered, data science can negatively impact the organizations data scientists are trying to assist. We conclude by proposing three ways data scientists interested in working within the social services sector can enhance their contributions to the field: refining and leveraging available data, improving collaborations, and respecting data limitations.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43073458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517221145671
A. Rothermel
In recent years, there have been a growing number of online and offline attacks linked to a loosely connected network of misogynist and antifeminist online communities called ‘the manosphere’. Since 2016, the ideas spread among and by groups of the manosphere have also become more closely aligned with those of other Far-Right online networks. In this commentary, I explore the role of what I term ‘evidence-based misogyny’ for mobilization and radicalization into the antifeminist and misogynist subcultures of the manosphere. Evidence-based misogyny is a discursive strategy, whereby members of the manosphere refer to (and misinterpret) knowledge in the form of statistics, studies, news items and pop-culture and mimic accepted methods of knowledge presentation to support their essentializing, polarizing views about gender relations in society. Evidence-based misogyny is a core aspect for manosphere-related mobilization as it provides a false sense of authority and forges a collective identity, which is framed as a supposed ‘alternative’ to mainstream gender knowledge. Due to its core function to justify and confirm the misogynist sentiments of users, evidence-based misogyny serves as connector between the manosphere and both mainstream conservative as well as other Far-Right and conspiratorial discourses.
{"title":"The role of evidence-based misogyny in antifeminist online communities of the ‘manosphere’","authors":"A. Rothermel","doi":"10.1177/20539517221145671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221145671","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, there have been a growing number of online and offline attacks linked to a loosely connected network of misogynist and antifeminist online communities called ‘the manosphere’. Since 2016, the ideas spread among and by groups of the manosphere have also become more closely aligned with those of other Far-Right online networks. In this commentary, I explore the role of what I term ‘evidence-based misogyny’ for mobilization and radicalization into the antifeminist and misogynist subcultures of the manosphere. Evidence-based misogyny is a discursive strategy, whereby members of the manosphere refer to (and misinterpret) knowledge in the form of statistics, studies, news items and pop-culture and mimic accepted methods of knowledge presentation to support their essentializing, polarizing views about gender relations in society. Evidence-based misogyny is a core aspect for manosphere-related mobilization as it provides a false sense of authority and forges a collective identity, which is framed as a supposed ‘alternative’ to mainstream gender knowledge. Due to its core function to justify and confirm the misogynist sentiments of users, evidence-based misogyny serves as connector between the manosphere and both mainstream conservative as well as other Far-Right and conspiratorial discourses.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41929117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231180583
Vasilis Kostakis, Alex Pazaitis, Minas V. Liarokapis
Technological imaginaries have been increasingly shaping the future perceptions of cities. From artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology to three-dimensional printing, high-tech artifacts are very often the premises of such imaginaries. However, technology does not only refer to artifacts. Technology also encompasses the processes around the artifacts: how the artifacts are designed, manufactured, used, maintained, and disposed. From this perspective, high-tech visions often disregard problems that pertain to resource extraction, labor exploitation, energy use, and material flows. On the contrary, low-tech and localized alternatives incite lower impact and higher resilience visions. However, they fail to offer solutions of the desired scale and intensity. To address this tension, we provide an alternative vision for mid-tech: a balance between the opposite extreme qualities of low-tech and high-tech. Through a case of open-source prosthetics, we illustrate how to synergistically combine the efficiency and versatility of high-tech solutions with the potential for autonomy and resilience that low-tech offers. Then we discuss a mid-tech approach for distributed ledger technology from a city as a license lens. We provide connections with existing or conceptual applications to show how distributed ledger technology could support more socially and ecologically responsible data practices for city governance.
{"title":"Beyond high-tech versus low-tech: A tentative framework for sustainable urban data governance","authors":"Vasilis Kostakis, Alex Pazaitis, Minas V. Liarokapis","doi":"10.1177/20539517231180583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231180583","url":null,"abstract":"Technological imaginaries have been increasingly shaping the future perceptions of cities. From artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology to three-dimensional printing, high-tech artifacts are very often the premises of such imaginaries. However, technology does not only refer to artifacts. Technology also encompasses the processes around the artifacts: how the artifacts are designed, manufactured, used, maintained, and disposed. From this perspective, high-tech visions often disregard problems that pertain to resource extraction, labor exploitation, energy use, and material flows. On the contrary, low-tech and localized alternatives incite lower impact and higher resilience visions. However, they fail to offer solutions of the desired scale and intensity. To address this tension, we provide an alternative vision for mid-tech: a balance between the opposite extreme qualities of low-tech and high-tech. Through a case of open-source prosthetics, we illustrate how to synergistically combine the efficiency and versatility of high-tech solutions with the potential for autonomy and resilience that low-tech offers. Then we discuss a mid-tech approach for distributed ledger technology from a city as a license lens. We provide connections with existing or conceptual applications to show how distributed ledger technology could support more socially and ecologically responsible data practices for city governance.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47547610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231163172
Emily Maemura
This paper examines the Web ARChive (WARC) file format, revealing how the format has come to play a central role in the development and standardization of interoperable tools and methods for the international web archiving community. In the context of emerging big data approaches, I consider the sociotechnical relationships between material construction of data and information infrastructures for collecting and research. Analysis is inspired by Star and Griesemer's historical case of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology which reveals how boundary objects and methods standardization are used to enroll actors in the work of collecting for natural history. I extend these concepts by pairing them with frameworks for studying digital materiality and the representational qualities of data artifacts. Through examples drawn from fieldwork observations studying two data-centered research projects, I consider how the materiality of the WARC format influences research methods and approaches to data extraction, selection, and transformation. Findings identify three modalities researchers use to configure WARC data for researcher needs: using indexes to support search queries, constructing derivative formats designed for certain types of analysis, and generating custom-designed datasets tailored for specific research purposes. Findings additionally reveal similarities in how these distinct methods approach automated data extraction by relying upon the WARC's standardized metadata elements. By interrogating whose information needs are being met and taken into account in the design of the WARC's underlying information representation, I reveal effects on the emerging field of web history, and consider alternative approaches to knowledge production with archived web data.
{"title":"All WARC and no playback: The materialities of data-centered web archives research","authors":"Emily Maemura","doi":"10.1177/20539517231163172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231163172","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the Web ARChive (WARC) file format, revealing how the format has come to play a central role in the development and standardization of interoperable tools and methods for the international web archiving community. In the context of emerging big data approaches, I consider the sociotechnical relationships between material construction of data and information infrastructures for collecting and research. Analysis is inspired by Star and Griesemer's historical case of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology which reveals how boundary objects and methods standardization are used to enroll actors in the work of collecting for natural history. I extend these concepts by pairing them with frameworks for studying digital materiality and the representational qualities of data artifacts. Through examples drawn from fieldwork observations studying two data-centered research projects, I consider how the materiality of the WARC format influences research methods and approaches to data extraction, selection, and transformation. Findings identify three modalities researchers use to configure WARC data for researcher needs: using indexes to support search queries, constructing derivative formats designed for certain types of analysis, and generating custom-designed datasets tailored for specific research purposes. Findings additionally reveal similarities in how these distinct methods approach automated data extraction by relying upon the WARC's standardized metadata elements. By interrogating whose information needs are being met and taken into account in the design of the WARC's underlying information representation, I reveal effects on the emerging field of web history, and consider alternative approaches to knowledge production with archived web data.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47568379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231164119
Ritwick Ghosh, H. Faxon
Although new forms of data can be used to hold power to account, they also grant the powerful new resources to game accountability. We dub the latter behavior “smart corruption.” The concept highlights the possibility of appropriating algorithms, infrastructures, and data publics to accumulate benefits and obscure responsibility while leaning into the positive associations of transparency. Unlike conventional forms of corruption, smart corruption is disguised as progressive, and is thus difficult to spot or analyze through existing legal or ethical frameworks. To illustrate, we outline a satirical strategy for gaming accountability. Identifying the particular mechanisms and outcomes of transgressive activities carried out under the veneer of data-driven transparency, as well as the key actors and organizations most active in gaming accountability, is an important research and political project.
{"title":"Smart corruption: Satirical strategies for gaming accountability","authors":"Ritwick Ghosh, H. Faxon","doi":"10.1177/20539517231164119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231164119","url":null,"abstract":"Although new forms of data can be used to hold power to account, they also grant the powerful new resources to game accountability. We dub the latter behavior “smart corruption.” The concept highlights the possibility of appropriating algorithms, infrastructures, and data publics to accumulate benefits and obscure responsibility while leaning into the positive associations of transparency. Unlike conventional forms of corruption, smart corruption is disguised as progressive, and is thus difficult to spot or analyze through existing legal or ethical frameworks. To illustrate, we outline a satirical strategy for gaming accountability. Identifying the particular mechanisms and outcomes of transgressive activities carried out under the veneer of data-driven transparency, as well as the key actors and organizations most active in gaming accountability, is an important research and political project.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47661542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231177621
D. Curran
Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism provides a powerful analysis of the emergence of surveillance capitalism as a particular type of informational capitalism. Many of the important impacts of this project of creating larger and more integrated systems of ‘behavioural surplus’ are captured powerfully by Zuboff; yet as different risk and organisational scholars such as Beck, Perrow, and Vaughan have argued, integrated systems often do not function as intended. While the imperfection of these systems may raise the possibility that surveillance capitalism may not be as bad as Zuboff suggests, there is also a way in which these systems not functioning as intended can make surveillance capitalism an even more dystopian possibility. In this vein, this paper asks: what are the consequences when the tools of a surveillance capitalist society break down? This paper argues that it is by thinking through Zuboff's framework that we can identify the systemic fragility of a surveillance capitalist society. This systemic fragility emerges through how surveillance capitalism generates imperatives towards the maximal collection of data for exploitation, which in turn generates a corresponding imperative to connect all aspects of life. Both of these imperatives, of collect and connect, in turn create an immensely fragile digital system, which has vast ramifications throughout social life, such that small imperfections and gaps in the system can magnify risk throughout society.
{"title":"Surveillance capitalism and systemic digital risk: The imperative to collect and connect and the risks of interconnectedness","authors":"D. Curran","doi":"10.1177/20539517231177621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231177621","url":null,"abstract":"Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism provides a powerful analysis of the emergence of surveillance capitalism as a particular type of informational capitalism. Many of the important impacts of this project of creating larger and more integrated systems of ‘behavioural surplus’ are captured powerfully by Zuboff; yet as different risk and organisational scholars such as Beck, Perrow, and Vaughan have argued, integrated systems often do not function as intended. While the imperfection of these systems may raise the possibility that surveillance capitalism may not be as bad as Zuboff suggests, there is also a way in which these systems not functioning as intended can make surveillance capitalism an even more dystopian possibility. In this vein, this paper asks: what are the consequences when the tools of a surveillance capitalist society break down? This paper argues that it is by thinking through Zuboff's framework that we can identify the systemic fragility of a surveillance capitalist society. This systemic fragility emerges through how surveillance capitalism generates imperatives towards the maximal collection of data for exploitation, which in turn generates a corresponding imperative to connect all aspects of life. Both of these imperatives, of collect and connect, in turn create an immensely fragile digital system, which has vast ramifications throughout social life, such that small imperfections and gaps in the system can magnify risk throughout society.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47233959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517221149099
Ov Cristian Norocel, D. Lewandowski
This study deploys a critical approach to big data analytics to gauge the tentative contours of data voids in Google searches that reflect extreme-right dynamics of exclusion in the aftermath of the 2015 humanitarian crisis in Europe. The study adds complexity to the analysis of data voids, expanding the framework of investigation outside the USA context by concentrating on Germany and Sweden. Building on previous big data analytics addressing the politics of exclusion, the study proposes a catalogue of queries concerning the issue of migration in both Germany and Sweden on a continuum from mainstream to extreme-right vocabularies. This catalogue of queries enables specific and localized queries to identify data voids. The results show that a search engine's reliance on source popularity may lead to extreme-right sources appearing in top positions. Furthermore, using platforms for user-generated content provides a way for localized queries to gain top positions.
{"title":"Google, data voids, and the dynamics of the politics of exclusion","authors":"Ov Cristian Norocel, D. Lewandowski","doi":"10.1177/20539517221149099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221149099","url":null,"abstract":"This study deploys a critical approach to big data analytics to gauge the tentative contours of data voids in Google searches that reflect extreme-right dynamics of exclusion in the aftermath of the 2015 humanitarian crisis in Europe. The study adds complexity to the analysis of data voids, expanding the framework of investigation outside the USA context by concentrating on Germany and Sweden. Building on previous big data analytics addressing the politics of exclusion, the study proposes a catalogue of queries concerning the issue of migration in both Germany and Sweden on a continuum from mainstream to extreme-right vocabularies. This catalogue of queries enables specific and localized queries to identify data voids. The results show that a search engine's reliance on source popularity may lead to extreme-right sources appearing in top positions. Furthermore, using platforms for user-generated content provides a way for localized queries to gain top positions.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49172525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231164113
Terhi Esko, Riikka Koulu
This article investigates future visions of digital public administration as they appear within a particular regulatory process that aims to enable automated decision-making (ADM) in public administration in Finland. By drawing on science and technology studies, public administration studies, and socio-legal studies we analyze law in the making and identify four imaginaries of public digital administration: understandable administration, self-monitoring administration, adaptive administration, and responsible administration. We argue that digital administration is seen from the perspective of public authorities serving their current needs of legitimizing existing automation practices. While technology is pictured as unproblematic, the citizen perspective is missing. We conclude that the absence of an in-depth understanding of the diverse needs of citizens raises the question whether the relationship between public power and citizens is becoming a one-way street despite of the public administration ideals that express values of citizen engagement.
{"title":"Imaginaries of better administration: Renegotiating the relationship between citizens and digital public power","authors":"Terhi Esko, Riikka Koulu","doi":"10.1177/20539517231164113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231164113","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates future visions of digital public administration as they appear within a particular regulatory process that aims to enable automated decision-making (ADM) in public administration in Finland. By drawing on science and technology studies, public administration studies, and socio-legal studies we analyze law in the making and identify four imaginaries of public digital administration: understandable administration, self-monitoring administration, adaptive administration, and responsible administration. We argue that digital administration is seen from the perspective of public authorities serving their current needs of legitimizing existing automation practices. While technology is pictured as unproblematic, the citizen perspective is missing. We conclude that the absence of an in-depth understanding of the diverse needs of citizens raises the question whether the relationship between public power and citizens is becoming a one-way street despite of the public administration ideals that express values of citizen engagement.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49464048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231173904
Hwankyung Janet Lee
Exploring emergent relations between data-producing individuals and their data products, this study aims to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discussion on agencies in data practices. It focuses on shifts in surveillance structure in the era of Big Data, in which the individual becomes both a subject and an object in the production of data surveillance. Drawing on the concept of the ‘dividual’, the study analyses data practices for a tracing system invented by the South Korean government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with findings from field research conducted with 11 research participants in various urban sites in Seoul. Highlighting how the tracing system positioned surveillance ‘in the hands of citizens’, the study exposes the complexities of the relations that the participants formed with the data they produced, and how they reflexively reappropriated their practices through alterations and deflections on the basis of their tacit knowledge and imaginaries concerning digital data and their constituent positions in the knowledge production system. The resultant expression of surveillance was directly shaped by the evolving relationship between the producers (participants) and products (digital data). The study proposes that an intersectional focus on surveillance and critical data studies, with close attention to ordinary people's relations with data, has the capacity to inquire into the politics of data more fully.
{"title":"‘I’ve left enough data’: Relations between people and data and the production of surveillance","authors":"Hwankyung Janet Lee","doi":"10.1177/20539517231173904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231173904","url":null,"abstract":"Exploring emergent relations between data-producing individuals and their data products, this study aims to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discussion on agencies in data practices. It focuses on shifts in surveillance structure in the era of Big Data, in which the individual becomes both a subject and an object in the production of data surveillance. Drawing on the concept of the ‘dividual’, the study analyses data practices for a tracing system invented by the South Korean government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with findings from field research conducted with 11 research participants in various urban sites in Seoul. Highlighting how the tracing system positioned surveillance ‘in the hands of citizens’, the study exposes the complexities of the relations that the participants formed with the data they produced, and how they reflexively reappropriated their practices through alterations and deflections on the basis of their tacit knowledge and imaginaries concerning digital data and their constituent positions in the knowledge production system. The resultant expression of surveillance was directly shaped by the evolving relationship between the producers (participants) and products (digital data). The study proposes that an intersectional focus on surveillance and critical data studies, with close attention to ordinary people's relations with data, has the capacity to inquire into the politics of data more fully.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45576144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/20539517231164108
Sarah A. Gilbert, Katie Shilton, Jessica Vitak
Social media provides unique opportunities for researchers to learn about a variety of phenomena—it is often publicly available, highly accessible, and affords more naturalistic observation. However, as research using social media data has increased, so too has public scrutiny, highlighting the need to develop ethical approaches to social media data use. Prior work in this area has explored users’ perceptions of researchers’ use of social media data in the context of a single platform. In this paper, we expand on that work, exploring how platforms and their affordances impact how users feel about social media data reuse. We present results from three factorial vignette surveys, each focusing on a different platform—dating apps, Instagram, and Reddit—to assess users’ comfort with research data use scenarios across a variety of contexts. Although our results highlight different expectations between platforms depending on the research domain, purpose of research, and content collected, we find that the factor with the greatest impact across all platforms is consent—a finding which presents challenges for big data researchers. We conclude by offering a sociotechnical approach to ethical decision-making. This approach provides recommendations on how researchers can interpret and respond to platform norms and affordances to predict potential data use sensitivities. The approach also recommends that researchers respond to the predominant expectation of notification and consent for research participation by bolstering awareness of data collection on digital platforms.
{"title":"When research is the context: Cross-platform user expectations for social media data reuse","authors":"Sarah A. Gilbert, Katie Shilton, Jessica Vitak","doi":"10.1177/20539517231164108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231164108","url":null,"abstract":"Social media provides unique opportunities for researchers to learn about a variety of phenomena—it is often publicly available, highly accessible, and affords more naturalistic observation. However, as research using social media data has increased, so too has public scrutiny, highlighting the need to develop ethical approaches to social media data use. Prior work in this area has explored users’ perceptions of researchers’ use of social media data in the context of a single platform. In this paper, we expand on that work, exploring how platforms and their affordances impact how users feel about social media data reuse. We present results from three factorial vignette surveys, each focusing on a different platform—dating apps, Instagram, and Reddit—to assess users’ comfort with research data use scenarios across a variety of contexts. Although our results highlight different expectations between platforms depending on the research domain, purpose of research, and content collected, we find that the factor with the greatest impact across all platforms is consent—a finding which presents challenges for big data researchers. We conclude by offering a sociotechnical approach to ethical decision-making. This approach provides recommendations on how researchers can interpret and respond to platform norms and affordances to predict potential data use sensitivities. The approach also recommends that researchers respond to the predominant expectation of notification and consent for research participation by bolstering awareness of data collection on digital platforms.","PeriodicalId":47834,"journal":{"name":"Big Data & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47167028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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