There’s an intriguing argument in The Mediated Construction of Social Reality, by Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp, concerning our dependence upon digital media and how we respond to its failure. From loc 5527: We feel the costs viscerally: when ‘our’… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘big data’
The Joy of Data
An engaging, accessible and long overdue documentary recently shown on the BBC:
Big Data and New Skills
A panel on the challenge of big data which took place at the International Sociological Association’s Logic & Methodologies conference. Bringing together a panel of academic experts, this event calls upon the panelists to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing research… Read More ›
Big data, new skills: how the accelerated academy hinders the interdisciplinary collaboration we need
Underlying many of the issues we’re discussing today is the fundamental problem of speed. We’ve seen rapid developments at the level of platforms, devices, practices and methods but this rapidity has made it difficult for methodological and theoretical deliberation to catch… Read More ›
NCRM Lectures on Big Data
Part of a much wider series of lecture videos they’ve posted on their YouTube page:
The Big Data Trap
A really interesting reflection on the limitations of ‘big data’ from the FT’s Tim Harford:
Know your terrorist credit score!
I can’t recommend this talk highly enough. It was the most thought provoking thing I saw at this year’s re:publica.
Deadline TOMORROW: Digital Methodologies – Beyond Big & Small Data
Digital Methodologies: Beyond Big & Small Data 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology (RC33) September 11th – 16th, 2016, University of Leicester (http://www.le.ac.uk/) Session Organizer Christian Bokhove, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, Mark Carrigan, University of Warwick, United Kingdom,… Read More ›
Special issue of @bigdatasoc on data and agency
Guest Editors: Helen Kennedy, University of Sheffield Thomas Poelle, University of Amsterdam José van Dijck, University of Amsterdam This special theme explores the location of agency in the massive flows of data circulating between devices, institutions, industries and users. Because Big Data… Read More ›
Only a few days left! Digital Methodologies – Beyond Big & Small Data
Digital Methodologies: Beyond Big & Small Data 9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology (RC33) September 11th – 16th, 2016, University of Leicester (http://www.le.ac.uk/) Session Organizer Christian Bokhove, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, Mark Carrigan, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, … Read More ›
Unfolding the origami of collective existence using digital data
A provocative paper co-authored by Bruno Latour, calling for a new spirit of collaboration between social scientists and natural scientists: This does not mean, of course, that the modeling tradition of natural sciences ceases to be relevant for the study… Read More ›
Beyond the ‘self-tracking’ craze: Towards a true technological enhancement of human intelligence
This mini-essay forms the basis of my contribution to the ‘self-tracking and the emergence of hybrid beings’ panel at the University of Liverpool’s Being Human Festival on 10 December 2015. The reader will see that I’m not especially enamored by… Read More ›
Digital capitalism and the form of social science it encourages
I’ve published a great piece on The Sociological Review blog, by Sage’s Ziyad Marar, which really resonates with some of the concerns shaping my new project: Yet our digital culture may exacerbate this problem by tilting us even further toward… Read More ›
What Can Data Visualisation Do?
Details below for an event on data visualisation which sounds great and is taking place as part of Sheffield universities’ ESRC Festival of Social Science. Presentations and discussion with experts and practitioners considering what data visualisations – that is, the… Read More ›
Digital Social Science Essay Competition
The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and Big Data & Society (BD&S) intend to award a prize of CHF 1,000 for the best essay on the topic ‘Influence and Power’. This is a topic, not a title. Accordingly, authors are… Read More ›
The @_ISRF @DigitalSocSci and @BigDataSoc Essay Competition
An exciting new project I’ve helped launch: a collaboration between the ISRF’s Digital Social Science Forum and the journal Big Data & Society. See here for full details: The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) and Big Data & Society (BD&S) intend to award a prize of… Read More ›
Big Data & Society – Early Career Researcher Forum
As part of its effort to expand beyond traditional types of academic publication, Big Data & Society has introduced an Early Career Researcher Forum targeted to scholars finishing or having recently completed advanced graduate degrees. More specifically the ECR forum… Read More ›
Big Data & Society – Early Career Researcher Forum
As part of its effort to expand beyond traditional types of academic publication, Big Data & Society has introduced an Early Career Researcher Forum targeted to scholars finishing or having recently completed advanced graduate degrees. More specifically the ECR forum… Read More ›
CfP: The Politics of Data (Science)
The Politics of Data (Science) This special issue of Discover Society will explore the political implications of ‘big data’ and the systems of expertise emerging around it, including though not limited to Data Science. In doing so it will aim… Read More ›
Call for papers: Internet of You: Data Big and Small
Call for papers for special issue of IEEE Internet Computing –http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/iccfp6 Internet of You: Data Big and Small Final submissions due: 1 March 2015 Publication issue: November/December 2015 Please email the guest editors a brief description of the article you… Read More ›
The myth of ‘us’ in a digital age
In his A necessary disenchantment: myth, agency and injustice in a digital world, Nick Couldry argues that transitions in media infrastructure are facilitating the emergence of a new myth of collectivity: A new myth about the collectivities we form when we use… Read More ›
Big Data and the ‘‘Book of Society”
An important point from the paper Big Data, social physics, and spatial analysis: The early years by Trevor J Barnes and Matthew W Wilson: The most immediate invocation of monism by Big Data is its assumption that the social world can be… Read More ›
Rethinking empirical social science
In this paper in Dialogues in Human Geography, Evelyn Ruppert from Goldsmiths College makes a case for the need to rethink empirical social science in the face of the epistemological and methodological challenge of ‘big data’: While Big Data –… Read More ›
The Philosophy of Data Science
This is a series of interviews I’m conducting for the LSE Impact blog: Rob Kitchin: “Big data should complement small data, not replace them.” In this first interview, Rob Kitchin elaborates on the specific characteristics of big data, the hype… Read More ›
Big Data and the Future of the Social Sciences
In this podcast, Professor Patrick Dunleavy talks about how big data will affect the future of the social sciences. Say goodbye to academic siloes as we enter into a new age of cross/multi/and inter-disciplinary research. In this changing landscape, the old boundaries… Read More ›
Normcore and the Anxieties of Big Data
This essay by Kate Crawford (from Microsoft Research) at the New Inquiry explores the relationship between big data, the anxieties it provokes and normcore (“Having mastered difference, the truly cool attempt to master sameness”). If one accepts her contention that normcore reflects “the dispersed anxiety of… Read More ›
The economies and ecologies of Big Data
In this fascinating talk from the NSMNSS conference last year, Evelyn Ruppert discusses the economies and ecologies of Big Data. Her research flowed from the Social Life of Methods project and led to the establishment of the exciting journal Big Data &… Read More ›