Big Data

Business and industry, governments, and academia are increasingly using “big data,” such as data derived from social media that is unprecedented in its scale and scope in yielding insights into people’s attitudes or behavior. Increasingly, big data has been promoted as a new tool for evidence-based decisions and policy-making. In this chapter, Ralph Schroeder outlines contrasting theoretical perspectives on big data. He compares Marxists, who demonstrate the ways that big data can be deployed to exploit users of digital media, and free-market thinkers (following Hayek), who believe that in an age of more data, capitalism will continue to lead to more growth. He then contrasts those perspectives with those of the sociologist Max Weber. By contrasting these theoretical perspectives, the author argues that there is a middle ground between Marx and Hayek. From a Weberian point of view, big data need neither be endorsed as an unquestionably positive development, nor necessarily critiqued as inherently exploitative.