Publications

You can download the books, articles and chapters listed below as a single zip file of PDFs here.

I try to make sure that all of my publications are freely available online through green or gold open access.

If there is anything that you can’t find please try this list of links. If you still can’t find it, please get in touch.

If you’d like to encourage other researchers to open up their research, you can install the open access button.

Books

Gray, J. (in preparation) Data Worlds: The Politics of Open and Public Data in the Digital Age. Under contract with MIT Press.

Gray, J. & Bounegru, L. (eds) (2021) The Data Journalism Handbook: Towards a Critical Data Practice.. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Data Journalism Handbook cover

“The Data Journalism Handbook: Towards a Critical Data Practice provides a rich and panoramic introduction to data journalism, combining both critical reflection and practical insight. It offers a diverse collection of perspectives on how data journalism is done around the world and the broader consequences of datafication in the news, serving as both a textbook and a sourcebook for this emerging field. With more than 70 chapters from leading researchers and leading practitioners of data journalism, it explores the work needed to render technologies and data productive for the purposes of journalism. It also gives a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the social lives of datasets, data infrastructures, and data stories in newsrooms, media organisations, startups, civil society organisations and beyond. The book includes sections on ‘doing issues with data’, ”assembling data’, ‘working with data’, ‘experiencing data’, ‘investigating data’, ‘platforms and algorithms’, ‘organising data journalism’, ‘training data journalists’ and ‘situating data journalism’.”

Details and order here. Available as free, open access PDF. Interview about the book here.

“This is a stellar collection that spans applied and scholarly perspectives on practices of data journalism, rich with insights into the work of making data tell stories.” – Kate Crawford, New York University

“This stimulating new book offers researchers and journalists alike the welcome chance to reflect critically on how important new uses of quantification are inspiring what has become known as data journalism. The variety of voices, data, and examples are revelatory.” – Wendy Espeland, Northwestern University

“It is now established that data is entangled with politics and embedded in history and society. This bountiful book highlights the crucial role of data journalists as users and critics of data, and in facilitating public engagement and discussion around it.” – Emmanuel Didier, Ecole normale supérieure

“Profound and practical, this sparkling collection engages the topic of data journalism with rich insights into the nature of numbers in the news.” – Geoffrey C. Bowker, University of California, Irvine

“This book is an impressive feat. Bounegru and Gray have put together a truly global and diverse collection that greatly enriches our understanding of the politics of data and what it means for journalism. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, this contribution is more important than ever.” – Lina Dencik, Cardiff University

“Ostensibly focused on data journalism, this handbook is so much more, providing an overarching analysis of much of the emerging field of critical data studies. Journalists and others interested in how to assemble, work with, make sense of, apply, and critically reflect on data and their uses will revel in the extensive theoretical and practical insights.” – Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University

“The Data Journalism Handbook is an indispensable resource for students, researchers, and journalists who want to understand how data are translated into information, information in knowledge and, ultimately, wisdom. That itinerary all starts with a full comprehension of how data reflect, construct and shape our social reality.” – José van Dijck, Utrecht University

“The variety, diversity, and depth of the contributions to this collective effort make this book a required reading for beginners and professionals alike.” – Alberto Cairo, University of Miami

“This magical multitudinous book is an experiment that will shape the future of critical data journalism.” – Celia Lury, University of Warwick

“By providing a wealth of living testimonies from practitioners and academics from different countries, this book gives a rich overview of practices that have become key in contemporary journalism. The main virtue of this book is to give a set of practical insights to help journalists not only to better cooperate with their peers but also to establish more fruitful relationships with researchers and publics.” – Sylvain Parasie, Sciences Po

“This wide-ranging and thoughtfully curated volume is an essential companion for researchers and practitioners who seek to rethink what data can mean for themselves and their audiences.” – Yanni A. Loukissas, Georgia Tech

“An intelligent and cutting-edge entry-point to the field of data journalism, sure to become an essential part of curricula and research around this topic.” – Anja Bechmann, Aarhus University

Eve, M. & Gray, J. (eds) (2020) Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

“A critical inquiry into the politics, practices, and infrastructures of open access and the reconfiguration of scholarly communication in digital societies.
The Open Access Movement proposes to remove price and permission barriers for accessing peer-reviewed research work—to use the power of the internet to duplicate material at an infinitesimal cost-per-copy. In this volume, contributors show that open access does not exist in a technological or policy vacuum; there are complex social, political, cultural, philosophical, and economic implications for opening research through digital technologies. The contributors examine open access from the perspectives of colonial legacies, knowledge frameworks, publics and politics, archives and digital preservation, infrastructures and platforms, and global communities. he contributors consider such topics as the perpetuation of colonial-era inequalities in research production and promulgation; the historical evolution of peer review; the problematic histories and discriminatory politics that shape our choices of what materials to preserve; the idea of scholarship as data; and resistance to the commercialization of platforms. Case studies report on such initiatives as the Making and Knowing Project, which created an openly accessible critical digital edition of a sixteenth-century French manuscript, the role of formats in Bruno Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, and the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), a network of more than 1,200 journals from sixteen countries. Taken together, the contributions represent a substantive critical engagement with the politics, practices, infrastructures, and imaginaries of open access, suggesting alternative trajectories, values, and possible futures.”

Details and order from here. Available as free, open access PDF. Podcast about the book here.

“The variety of material is impressive … Almost every chapter contained something new and interesting to me.” – Mark C. Wilson, Journal of Scholarly Publishing

Bounegru, L., Gray, J., Venturini, T. & Mauri, M. (2018) A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders. Amsterdam: Public Data Lab.

“A Field Guide to “Fake News” and Other Information Disorders explores the use of digital methods to study false viral news, political memes, trolling practices and their social life online. It responds to an increasing demand for understanding the interplay between digital platforms, misleading information, propaganda and viral content practices, and their influence on politics and public life in democratic societies.”

Translated into Japanese and Chinese with Spanish translation forthcoming.

Open access PDF available at: fakenews.publicdatalab.org.

DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1136271.

All assets available on GitHub.

“A remarkable new document” – Nieman Lab

“A crucial set of skills for understanding media consumption in the new era” – Columbia Journalism Review

“Important new research” – Adam Thomas, Director, European Journalism Centre

“A great project” – Charlie Beckett, Professor and Director of Polis, London School of Economics

Gray, J., Bounegru, L. & Chambers, L. (eds) (2012) The Data Journalism Handbook. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

Translated into Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, Georgian, Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili and Ukranian.

Open access PDF available at: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1281348

“A great practical start” – BBC Academy.

“A unique journalistic collaboration” – The Guardian.

“An excellent book” – Knight Digital Media Center, University of Southern California.

“Inspiring and educational” – ReadWrite.

“Immensely valuable… read it now” – Significance magazine of The Royal Statistical Society and The American Statistical Association.

“An excellent introduction” – Statistics Norway.

“Seminal” – Roselyn Du, Hong Kong Baptist University.

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Selected Peer-Reviewed Articles

Braghieri, M., Blanke, T. and Gray, J. (2021) Journalism aggregators: an analysis of Longform.org. Journalism Research.

Open access in English: PDF / HTML. Open access in German: PDF / HTML.

Gray, J., Bounegru, L. & Venturini, T. (2020) ‘Fake news’ as infrastructural uncanny. New Media & Society 22, 2: 317-341.

Open Access PDF: 10.1177/1461444819856912

Gray, J. (2019). Data witnessing: attending to injustice with data in Amnesty International’s Decoders project. Information, Communication & Society. 1–21.

Open Access PDF: 10.1080/1369118X.2019.1573915

Gray, J., Gerlitz, C. & Bounegru, L. (2018) “Data Infrastructure Literacy”. Big Data & Society.

Open Access PDF: 10.1177/2053951718786316

Gray, J. (2018) “Three Aspects of Data Worlds”. Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy. Issue 1.

Open Access PDF and HTML.

Venturini, T., Bounegru, L., Gray, J., & Rogers, R. (2018). “A reality check(list) for digital methods”. New Media & Society.

DOI: 10.1177/1461444818769236.

Preprint: 10.2139/ssrn.3168664

Gray, J. (2017).“Quand les mondes de données sont redistribués: Open Data, infrastructures de données et démocratie” [“Redistributing Data Worlds: Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Democracy”]. Statistique et Société, 5(3), 29–34.

French PDF.

English PDF.

Bounegru, L., Venturini, T., Gray, J., Jacomy, M. (2016) “Narrating Networks: Exploring the Affordances of Networks as Storytelling Devices in Journalism”, Digital Journalism.

Open Access PDF: 10.1080/21670811.2016.1186497

“Invaluable analytical study” – Alan Liu, Distinguished Professor, Department of English, UC Santa Barbara.

Borgesius, F., Gray, J. & van Eechoud, M. (2016) “Open Data, Privacy and Fair Information Principles: Towards a Balancing Framework”, The Berkeley Technology Law Journal. 30: 3.

Open Access PDF.

Lawson, S., Gray, J. & Mauri, M. (2016) “Opening the Black Box of Scholarly Communication Funding: A Public Data Infrastructure for Financial Flows in Academic Publishing”. Open Library of Humanities. 2(1), p.e10.

Open Access HTML and PDF: 10.16995/olh.72

“Rigorous, balanced analysis” – Professor Stephen Curry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London.

Goldacre, B. & Gray, J. (2016) “Opentrials: Towards a Collaborative Open Database of All Available Information on All Clinical Trials”. Trials. 17 (164).

Open Access HTML and PDF: 10.1186/s13063-016-1290-8

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Selected Book Chapters

Gray, J. (2020) “The Datafication of Forests? From the Wood Wide Web to the Internet of Trees.” In Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (eds.) Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Abstract, introduction and table of contents for the book on Bruno Latour’s website. You can find more about the associated exhibition at ZKM Center for Art and Media and recordings from the online launch here.

Gray, J. (2020) “Infrastructural Experiments and the Politics of Open Access.” In M. Eve and J. Gray (eds) Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gray, J. (2020) “The Data Epic: Visualisation Practices for Narrating Life and Death at a Distance.” In H. Kennedy and M. Engebretsen (eds) Data Visualization in Society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Open Access PDF of book: 10.5117/9789463722902

Gray, J. (2020) “Data Worlds”. In A. Feigenbaum and A. Alamalhodaei (eds) The Data Storytelling Workbook. London: Routledge.

Gray, J. & Bounegru, L. (2019) “What a Difference a Dataset Makes? Data Journalism And/As Data Activism.” In J. Evans, S. Ruane and H. Southall (eds) Data in Society: Challenging Statistics in an Age of Globalisation. Bristol: The Policy Press.

Preprint: 10.5281/zenodo.1415450.

Gray, J., & Lammerhirt, D. (2019). Making Data Public? The Open Data Index as Participatory Device. In A. Daly, S. K. Devitt, & M. Mann (Eds.), Good Data. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.

Open access PDF of our chapter (Zenodo) and open access PDF of the whole book (Institute of Network Cultures).

Gray, J. (2018) “Computational Imaginaries: Some Further Remarks on Leibniz, Llull, and Rethinking the History of Calculating Machines.” In DIA-LOGOS: Ramon Llull’s Method of Thought and Artistic Practice, A. Vega, P. Weibel, and S. Zielinski (eds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Open access PDF of the chapter.

Venturini, T., Jacomy, M., Bounegru, L. & Gray, J. (2018) “Visual Network Exploration for Data Journalists.” In The Routledge Handbook of Developments in Digital Journalism Studies, S. Eldridge II and B. Franklin (eds). Abingdon: Routledge.

Preprint: ssrn.com/abstract=3043912.

Venturini, T., Bounegru, L., Jacomy, M., & Gray, J. (2017) “How to Tell Stories with Networks: Exploring the Narrative Affordances of Graphs with the Iliad.” In M. Schaefer and K. Van Es (eds) The Datafied Society: Studying Culture through Data. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Open Access PDF of book: 10.5117/9789462981362.

Gray, J., Bounegru, L., Milan, S. & Ciuccarelli, P. (2016) “Ways of Seeing Data: Towards a Critical Literacy for Data Visualisations as Research Objects and Research Devices”. In Sebastian Kubitschko and Anne Kaun (eds.), Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Preprint: ssrn.com/abstract=2846398

Gray, J. (2012) “Hamann, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein on the Language of Philosophers”. In Lisa Marie Anderson (ed.), Hamann and the Tradition. Northwestern University Press.

Preprint: ssrn.com/abstract=2407424.

“A good picture of the current state of the scholarship on this fascinating but still little-appreciated figure of the German 18th century” – Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

“A most valuable contribution to Hamann studies” – Goethe Yearbook

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Selected White Papers & Working Papers

Bounegru, L., Marres, N. & Gray, J. (2018) “A Digital Test of the News: Checking the Web for Public Facts”. CIM Warwick and Public Data Lab.

Lämmerhirt, D., Gray, J., Venturini, T. & Meunier, A. (2018) “Advancing sustainability together? Citizen-generated data and the Sustainable Development Goals.” Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, Open Knowledge International and Public Data Lab.

Cobham, A., Gray, J. & Murphy, R. (2017) “What Do They Pay? Towards a Public Database to Account for the Economic Activities and Tax Contributions of Multinational Corporations”. City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC) Working Paper Series, 2017/01.

Gray, J., Lammerhirt D., & Bounegru L. (2016) “Changing What Counts: How Can Citizen-Generated and Civil Society Data Be Used as an Advocacy Tool to Change Official Data Collection?.” Open Knowledge International and the CIVICUS DataShift.

Gray, J. (2015) “Democratising the Data Revolution: A Discussion Paper”. Open Knowledge International.

Gray, J. & Davies, T. (2015) “Fighting Phantom Firms in the UK: From Opening Up Datasets to Reshaping Data Infrastructures?”. Working paper presented at the Open Data Research Symposium at the 3rd International Open Government Data Conference in Ottawa, on May 27th 2015

Gray, J. (2015) “Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape”. Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam), the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency (GIFT) and Open Knowledge International.

Gray, J. (2014) “Towards a Genealogy of Open Data”. Working paper given at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Glasgow, 3-6th September 2014.

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Selected Essays & Public Writing

Following is a selection of some recent press pieces and a few older essays. Further articles can be found via author profiles on The Guardian, Open Democracy and Journalisted.

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Book Reviews

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