Event: Data empires -The birth of sensory power

Engin Isin (QMUL) will be delivering a lecture based on a chapter co-written with Evelyn Ruppert (Editor, BD&S) in their recently published edited collection, Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights (Bigo, D, E. Isin, and E. Ruppert, eds. (2019)). Speaking in relation to a blog published on this site, he will suggest that since the 1980s, we are possibly experiencing the birth of sensory power. The lecture is sponsored by Goldsmiths Centre for Postcolonial Studies and will take place on 9 December 2019, 17:00 - 19:00, RHB 221, second floor, Rutherford Building, Goldsmiths University of London.  More information here.

Event: Data Rights - Subjects or Citizens?

On 11 November, the Mile End Institute (Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL)) is hosting an event that will discuss how the exponential accumulation of data from everyday online and offline activities raises tensions about who has the rights to produce and own such data. A panel will feature three speakers from a recently published book edited by Didier Bigo, Engin Isin, and Evelyn Ruppert (Editor, BD&S): Data Politics: Worlds, Subjects, Rights (2019). Engin Isin (QMUL) will chair the panel with Elspeth Guild (QMUL), Jennifer Gabrys (Cambridge; Co-editor, BD&S) and Didier Bigo (Sciences Po and KCL) speaking about their contributions. Click here for more information and to register.  The book is Open Access and a pdf copy can be downloaded here.

Book Launch, Digital Sociology: The Reinvention of Social Research by Noortje Marres

Madras HQ Bibliotheque, CODE/CITY, Manu Luksch © 2017

Digital Sociology* was launched on 9 May 2017 at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. The launch included a panel discussion chaired by Lucy Kimble (University of the Arts London) with contributions from the author, Noortje Marres (University of Warwick; BD&S Editorial Board member) and four panellists.  In advance of the panel, the Journal also filmed Hannah Knox (UCL; BD&S Editorial Board member) interviewing Marres about some key arguments in her book.  The video is available here.

Noortje Marres began by noting that her final manuscript was submitted shortly after the Brexit vote and Trump election, which have sparked considerable debate on the role of social media, data analysis tools to detect fake news and new forms of blocking manipulative content. What is the relation of these two events to her book? She argued that these are piecemeal technical solutions that do not go to the heart of the problem. As much research has shown, communities amongst which fake news circulates are separate from the platforms and their mitigating technical services. What technical solutions do not address is that sharing is a logic underpinning digital platforms and from which their social value is derived. It is this value and logic that digital sociology attends to, of how knowledge generation is a social process rather than narrowly behaviorist or configured by individual platforms. Marres’ understanding of social logics is at the heart of her book and each panelist took this up in different ways.

Les Back (Goldsmiths) began with a quote from Marres’ book, that ‘digital sociology is ultimately a form of awareness, nothing more, nothing less’ (44) and that it is not fringe but key to understanding social life and that we are already inside the thing we are trying to understand. To exemplify this point he noted how the monitoring of social media is part of the very techniques of digital border surveillance and the traceability of migrants.  Beyond police and border guards, the movement and management of migrants are in numerous and troubling ways implicated in the digital.

Amanda Windle (University of the Arts London) offered a feminist critique by referencing a quote inspired by Donna Haraway’s work that ‘we must stay with the trouble’ (37). Marres offered this in relation to the troubling question of framings of the digital as either an object or instrument of inquiry. Windle added to the ‘troubles’ raised in Marres’ book by posing a number of questions such as ‘whose digital sociology?’; are research subjects active or passive participants? what are the situated practices that make up digital life? which bodies are potentially silenced?

Mike Savage (LSE) reflected on the reference in Marres’ book to the 2007 article he co-wrote with Roger Burrows on the ‘coming crisis of empirical sociology’ and how Marres effectively critiques the presumed binary they set up between ‘new’ and ‘old’ methods. Taking the example of inequalities research, he argued that rather than debating for or against new methods the challenge is how to persuasively tell stories through aesthetic devices and visualisations and what he names the ‘symphonic aesthetic.’ 

Hannah Knox (UCL) took up another claim in Marres’s book that while people have always been active in world making, digital devices blur the boundaries between methods and the tools people use in their everyday lives. She argued that scientists need to become sociologists to understand data and interpret visualisations. Through this provocation she made an appeal for interdisciplinarity and questioned whether we are all becoming digital sociologists or if there are new forms of expertise emerging in the interstices of existing disciplines.

In these and other ways, all presentations attested to the importance and wide applicability of Marres' book for sociological studies of digital worlds.  An audio transcript of the panel can be found here.

*Marres, Noortje.  2017. Digital Sociology: The Reinvention of Social Research. Cambridge: Polity Press.

BD&S Editor Evelyn Ruppert speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

BD&S Editor Evelyn Ruppert recently spoke at two events at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. In her talk, ‘Enabling digitally inclusive societies’, she drew on her research on citizen rights and data to discuss how the internet  impacts social cohesion - an increasingly pertinent theme for the WEF, which this year has put digital technology and its impact on economies and societies worldwide at the heart of its programme. Her talk was part of an Ideas Lab session, ‘The Science of Social Cohesion', organized by the European Research Council (ERC). Evelyn joined 8 other ERC grantees as part of a delegation to the WEF led by ERC President Prof. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon.

Referring to her ERC project ARITHMUS, she argued that  fostering citizen engagement in how the internet works and rights to the data that it generates are key to making digital societies inclusive 

rather than divisive and controlling. While expanding access to the internet is usually regarded as an answer to ending a digital divide, she argued it is also necessary to provide openings for people to be not merely users and consumers of the internet, but digital citizens with the power to shape what it should be.  

At another invited session Evelyn joined a panel of business leaders and human rights lawyers to discuss the timely question, ‘What if Privacy Becomes a Luxury Good?’ Organised as a partnership between the WEF and TIME Magazine, the session involved a discussion of the implications of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ for societies. The panel addressed how digital devices are monitoring and compiling personal data and the uneven consequences this has for privacy.  The session was live streamed and can be viewed here.

Editor Evelyn Ruppert responding to Frank Pasquale keynote on ‘The Promise (and Threat) of Algorithmic Accountability’

On Tuesday 26 January, 2016, Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland and author of The Black Box Society, will be delivering a public lecture at the launch of LSE’s MSc in Media and Communications (Data and Society). He will be focusing on recent controversies over the “right to be forgotten” and alternative credit scoring (such as proposals to base loan approvals on qualities of the applicant’s social network contacts), and propose reforms essential to humane automation of new media and banking. Editor Evelyn Ruppert will be responding to his lecture.

See http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2016/01/20160126t1830vSZT.aspx for more details.

Big Data & Society Editors Evelyn Ruppert and Richard Rogers Among Keynotes at Data Power Conference 2015

What is the cost of the data delirium? What kind of power is enacted when data are employed by governments and security agencies to monitor populations? Is there a possibility of agency in the face of data power? 

BD&S Founding Editor Prof. Evelyn Ruppert

These are a few of the key questions that will be addressed at Data Power Conference 2015. Data Power 2015, hosted by The University of Sheffield on June 22-23, is a critical space of reflection on these and other issues related to big data practices and questions of power in big-data-driven environments. Key themes include the political economy of data; data cultures (data and the cultural industries, data journalism); data and the production of subjectivity and identity; data mining regulation; and, resistance, agency, and appropriation. 

The conference draws on a number of expert and critical reflections by a wide range of keynote speakers. Amongst them are Big Data & Society Editor and Founding Editor Evelyn Ruppert (Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London), and Editor Richard Rogers of the Digital Methods Initiative, University of Amsterdam, NL. 

BD& S Editor Prof. Richard Rogers

Professor Ruppert’s talk titled ‘From data subjects to digital citizens’ brings the political subject of data to the centre of concern by challenging a determinist analyses of the Internet — one that imagines people as passive data subjects. To the contrary, Prof. Ruppert attends to political subjectivities that are always performed in relation to sociotechnical arrangements. In compliment, Professor Rogers will build on Dominique Boullier's call for a third generation social science in his talk 'Dashboards, Social Media Monitoring and Critical Data Analytics' to discuss how the dashboard has become the dominant mode of display and social media monitoring as predominant analytical practice.

Data Power Conference 2015 is hosted by The Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociological Studies and The Digital Society Network at The University of Sheffield. For more information on programme and registration, visit Data Power Conference 2015.

2014 Social Media & Society Conference (#SMSociety14) Call for Submissions

Doing research on Social Big Data? Please consider submitting a paper/poster abstract or panel submission to the 2014 Social Media & Society Conference (Toronto, Canada, September 27-28). Submission deadlines are fast approaching!


We live in an era of “Big Data”. Petabyte and exabyte-size datasets are becoming increasingly common.  Much of the data is coming from social media in the form of user-generated content. What do we do with all of these “social” data and how do we make sense of it all? What are the inherent challenges and issues surrounding working with social media data? How are social media platforms and the data that they generate changing us as individuals, changing our organizations and changing our society? Additionally what are the political, ethical, privacy, and security implications of the wide availability of these data? These are just a few questions that we have for this year’s participants of the  Social Media & Society Conference (#SMSociety14).

The Social Media & Society Conference is an annual gathering of leading social media researchers from around the world.  Now, in its 5th year, the 2014 Conference will be held in Toronto, Canada from September 27 to 28. From its inception, the conference has focused on the best practices for studying the impact and implications of social media on society.  The conference offers an intensive two-day program comprising of paper presentations, panel discussions, and posters covering wide-ranging topics related to social media. Organized by the Social Media Lab at Dalhousie University, the conference provides attendees an opportunity to exchange ideas, present their original research, learn about recently completed and work-in-progress studies, and strengthen connections with their peers. Last year’s conference hosted nearly 200 attendees, featured research from 90+ scholars and practitioners across several fields from over 60 institutions in 15 different countries.

We invite you to submit papers (extended abstracts), panel proposals and posters on a variety of topics including (but not limited to!): Social Media & Big Data, Social Media Impact on Society, Theories & Methods, and Online/Offline Communities.

Full papers are not required for this conference, only an extended abstract (~500 words, excluding references) on a completed or well-developed project related to the broad theme of “Social Media & Society.” All submissions will be peer-reviewed. If selected, the author(s) will be invited to give a 15-minute oral presentation followed by a 5 min Q&A period at the conference. Author(s) of accepted paper abstracts will also be invited to submit their full papers to the Big Data & Society Journal.


How to submit: http://socialmediaandsociety.com/?page_id=549

#SMSOCIETY14 TOPICS OF INTEREST 

SOCIAL MEDIA & BIG DATA

• Visualization of Social Media Data
• Social Media Data Mining
• Scalability Issues and Social Media Data
• Social Media Analytics 

SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT ON SOCIETY

• Private Self/Public Self
• The Sharing/Attention Economy
• Virality & Memes
• Political Mobilization & Engagement
• Social Media and Health
• Social Media and Business (Marketing, PR, HR, Risk Management, etc.)
• Social Media and Academia (Alternative Metrics. Learning Analytics, etc.)
• Social Media and Public Administration
• Social Media and the news

 THEORIES & METHODS

• Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
• Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis
• Social Network Analysis
• Theoretical Models for Studying, Analysing and Understanding Social Media  

ONLINE/OFFLINE COMMUNITIES

• Trust and Credibility in Social Media
• Online Community Detection
• Influential User Detection
• Online Identity
• Case Studies of Online and/or Offline Communities Formed on Social Media

Journal Editorial Team speaking at Goldsmiths Big Data Practices seminar (http://www.gold.ac.uk/csisp/)

Members of the Journal Editorial Team will be doing a number of presentations as part of Goldsmiths Data Practices Seminar Series.

Date: Wednesday 19 February 2014, 14:00 - 17:00

Location: Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross

Richard Hoggart Building, Rm 137a

Big Data Practices

Speakers:

Evelyn Ruppert, Goldsmiths (UK) - Why Big Data?

Paolo Ciuccarelli, Politecnico di Milano and DensityDesign (IT) - The Logo as Method

Matt Zook, New Mappings Collaboratory, University of Kentucky (US) - Mobile Phone Big Data and Visibility

Irina Shklovski, Digital Media & Communication Research Group, IT University of Copenhagen (DK) -  'Creepy apps’ and conceptions of personal space  

Anatoliy Gruzd, School of Information Management, Dalhousie University (CA) -  Automated Discovery and Visualization of Communication Networks from Social Media

Richard Rogers, Digital Methods Initiative, University of Amsterdam (NL) - Digital Methods

Data Practices Seminar Series

Tomorrow is the launch of a seminar series organised by Editor Evelyn Ruppert and her Goldsmiths colleagues Alex Wilkie, Jennifer Gabrys, & Noortje Marres. The series explores the analytic interest and methodological preoccupation with ‘data’ and the shifting terrain of data practices across design and social science. Incorporating lectures, workshops and demonstrations, the seminar series brings together a resonant range of events on data practices that provoke questions about the formation and force of data, the claims made for and through data, and the altered practices and politics of data.

The first seminar will involve an introduction to the series by the organisers called 'A thing to talk with.'  As part of this series, on 19 February co-editors of the BD&S journal will speak about 'Big Data Practices.'

Details about the series can be found at this link.