Author Archives: jwyg

Twelve Challenges for Critical Data Practice

By jwyg | Published: June 9, 2020

As we’re in the final stages of editorial for the Data Journalism Handbook (forthcoming on Amsterdam University Press) Liliana Bounegru and I are curious to hear from those who have read and/or used the online beta of the book. In particular we’re curious to learn about any projects or activities which were prompted by the “Twelve […]

Posted in books, data, Data Journalism Handbook, data politics, datajournalism, datajournalismhandbook, digital journalism, open access, projects, Public Data Lab, research, science and technology studies | Tagged algorithm studies, critical data practice, Critical Data Studies, data as relations, data infrastructures, Data Journalism Handbook, material participation, participation, uncertainty, visual culture | Comments closed

Online launch of “Critical Zones” exhibition at ZKM

By jwyg | Published: May 22, 2020

This weekend sees the online launch of “Critical Zones – Observatories for Earthly Politics” at ZKM Center for Art and Media in Germany, co-curated by Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel, Martin Guinard and Bettina Korintenberg. I’ve contributed a chapter on “The Datafication of Forests? From the Wood Wide Web to the Internet of Trees” to the […]

Posted in academia, art, Bruno Latour, climatechange, data, data aesthetics, data politics, environment, events, exhibitions, humanities, media studies, open access, publications, research, science and technology studies, technology | Tagged Adam G. Riess, Alexandra Arènes, Ali Gharib, Art, Barbara Kiolbassa, Bettina Korintenberg, Bruce Clarke, Bruno Latour, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Donna Haraway, Emanuele Coccia, exhibitions, Eyal Weizman, Festival, Frédérique Aït-Touati, Jan Zalasiewicz, Jennifer Gabrys, Joseph Leo Koerner, livestream, Marie-Claire Pierret, Martin Guinard Bettina Korintenberg., online events, Peter Weibel, Sébastien Dutreuil, Simon Schaffer, Soheil Hajmirbaba, sts, Tim Lenton, Vinciane Despret, ZKM | Comments closed

An open letter and open questions about the COVID19 datastore

By jwyg | Published: May 20, 2020

I’ve co-signed an open letter with some open questions on the COVID19 datastore along with a group of researchers and of civil society organisations. The letter is copied below. The original version can be found here. Associated coverage and posts can be found at The New Statesman, The Register, Computer Weekly, IT Pro, Hollyrood and […]

Posted in advocacy, data, data activism, data politics, policy | Tagged Article 19, COVID19, COVID19 datastore, data politics, Liberty, Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Knowledge International, open letters, Open Rights Group, Privacy, Privacy International | Comments closed

Interview in New Internationalist on air pollution data practices

By jwyg | Published: May 12, 2020

I was recently interviewed by New Internationalist co-editor Amy Hall for the cover story of its latest edition on air pollution. We spoke about a recent interdisciplinary research project at King’s College London on “Doing Participation with Air Pollution Data” also building on the Public Data Lab’s Save Our Air project. Here’s an excerpt: Jonathan […]

Posted in data, data activism, environment, interviews, media appearances, Public Data Lab, quotes, research | Tagged Air pollution, climate change, data practices, King's College London, New Internationalist, participation, sensing devices, sensors | Comments closed

Book Chapter “The Data Epic: Visualisation Practices for Narrating Life and Death at a Distance” in Data Visualization in Society (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press)

By jwyg | Published: May 6, 2020

I’ve just had a chapter on “The Data Epic: Visualisation Practices for Narrating Life and Death at a Distance” published in a new book on Data Visualization in Society (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press) edited by Helen Kennedy and Martin Engebretsen. The book is open access and you can download the whole manuscript as as PDF […]

Posted in academia, data, data aesthetics, media studies, open access, publications, research, visualisation | Tagged Alain Desrosières, Alan Liu, Amsterdam University Press, data aesthetics, data epic, data politics, data practices, Data Sublime, Donna Haraway, Helen Kennedy, Isotype Institue, Kant, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lauren Klein, Marie Neurath, Michael Lynch, Neil Halloran, Nuclear Threat, Objectivity, Otto Neurath, scale, sociology of quantification, Theodore Porter, Wendy Espeland, Will Davies, World War II | Comments closed

New Article: “‘Fake News’ as Infrastructural Uncanny”, New Media & Society

By jwyg | Published: January 21, 2020

An article by Liliana Bounegru, Tommaso Venturini and I on “‘Fake news’ as infrastructural uncanny” has just been published in New Media & Society. It builds on work that we did as part of the Field Guide to “Fake News” with the Public Data Lab. The article is open access and freely available on the web and in PDF format. […]

Posted in A Field Guide to "Fake News" and Other Information Disorders, academia, media studies, Public Data Lab, publications, research, science and technology studies | Tagged infrastructure studies, like economy, link economy, metrification, quantification, tracker economy, trackers, uncanny, Uncanny Studies | Comments closed

New piece: “Is “another internet possible”? Inside Labour’s digital infrastructure plans” in Open Democracy

By jwyg | Published: December 6, 2019

The following piece is cross-posted from OpenDemocracy, where it was published on 4th December 2019. The Labour Party’s recently launched manifesto and associated proposals contain the seeds of an egalitarian, progressive vision of the role that digital, data and knowledge infrastructures might play in contemporary life. While their proposals on broadband, tax, data, patents, platforms, AI and digital rights […]

Posted in academia, actor-network theory, data, data activism, digital, media studies, policy | Tagged AI, artificial intelligence, British Broadband, data colonialism, data4gnd, digital rights, Green New Deal, information infrastructure, infrastructure studies, Labour Party, national data funds, OpenDemocracy, platform capitalism, surveillance captialism, Tax | Comments closed

Book chapter: “What a difference a dataset makes? Data journalism and/as data activism”, Data in Society, (Policy Press, 2019)

By jwyg | Published: November 7, 2019

A book chapter on “What a difference a dataset makes? Data journalism and/as data activism” co-authored with Liliana Bounegru has just been published in a new book Data in Society: Challenging Statistics in an Age of Globalisation on Policy Press. The preprint is available here and an excerpt from the introduction and full reference are copied below.

Posted in academia, data, data activism, datajournalism, media studies, publications, research, science and technology studies | Tagged book chapters, Data Activism, data journalism, radical statistics, sts | Comments closed

New Chinese Translation of Public Data Lab’s “A Field Guide to ‘Fake News’ and Other Information Disorders”

By jwyg | Published: April 26, 2019

I’ve just received a copy of a new Chinese translation of the Public Data Lab‘s “A Field Guide to ‘Fake News’ and Other Information Disorders” which has been published by the Quality News Development Association (優質新聞發展協會) in Taipei. I’ve been told that a free digital copy is forthcoming, and in the mean time printed copies […]

Posted in A Field Guide to "Fake News" and Other Information Disorders, academia, books, datajournalism, digital journalism, digital methods, open access, Public Data Lab, publications, research, science and technology studies, translations | Tagged Chinese, misinformation, New Media Studies, platform studies, Public Data Lab, translations | Comments closed

Book Chapter: “Computational Imaginaries: Some Further Remarks on Leibniz, Llull and Rethinking the History of Calculating Machines”, DIA-LOGOS: Ramon Llull’s Method of Thought and Artistic Practice (University of Minnesota Press, 2018)

By jwyg | Published: April 25, 2019

I’ve just had a chapter published in a new book on DIA-LOGOS: Ramon Llull’s Method of Thought and Artistic Practice (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018). The book is edited by the philosopher Amador Vega; the artist, curator and theorist Peter Weibel (who also co-curated the Making Things Public exhibition with Bruno Latour); and media theorist Siegfried […]

Posted in academia, art, culture, history, humanities, leibniz, media studies, philosophers, philosophy, publications, research, science and technology studies, sociology, technology | Tagged Amador Vega, Calculating Machines, Computational Imaginaries, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Leibniz, Peter Weibel, Ramon Llull, Siegfried Zielinski, Zairja, ZKM | Comments closed

Dr. Jonathan Gray is Lecturer in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London; Co-Founder of the Public Data Lab; and Research Associate at the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam and the médialab at Sciences Po, Paris. More about his work can be found here. He is on Twitter at @jwyg.