Public Data Cultures
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blurb
Public data shapes what we know and how we live together. It is often digital, freely available and related to matters of shared concern, from global warming graphs to collaborative spreadsheets documenting mass layoffs. It circulates via maps and apps which enable us to discover, report and rate what is around us.
Public Data Cultures explores the practices and cultures of how data is made public in the age of the Internet. Looking beyond familiar narratives of data as a resource to be liberated or protected, this book offers new perspectives on public data as networked cultural material, as medium of participation and as site of transnational politics. To better account for how data makes a difference, the book argues for a more expansive conception of what is involved in making data public. In doing so, it focuses not just on removing restrictions but also on caring for arrangements involved in making data public in ways that grow shared understanding and solidarity in responding to the many intersecting troubles of our times.
Nurturing critical and creative engagements with data, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of media, communications, Internet studies, science and technology studies and digital humanities, as well as artists, designers, engineers, reporters, public sector workers, community organisers and activists working with data.
contents
Introduction
I. RECONSIDERING DATA
1. Data as cultural material
2. Data as medium of participation
3. Data as transnational coordination
II. CRITICALLY ENGAGING DATA
4. Missing data and making data
5. Critical data practices
Conclusion
related materials
A selection of video materials, web projects, software scripts, tools, datasets and other resources related to research for Public Data Cultures book (in reverse chronological order):
- data not found (website) - “data not found is a dataset of datasets that were sought but not found on data portals around the world”
- data.gov.uk at 1 year/second (2009-2022) (video) - as per Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, inspired by Richard Rogers’s “Doing Web history with the Internet Archive: screencast documentaries”
- selection of national open data portals and interface features of a selection of national open data portals (datasets)
- data portal explorer (tool) - collaborative project with the Public Data Lab
- reshaping data worlds? (video) - short video for Association of Internet Researchers 2016 in Berlin.
- examples of fiscal data visualisations (dataset)
related publications
A selection of articles, chapters, books, special issues, white papers and public writing associated with research for Public Data Cultures book (in reverse chronological order):
- van Geenen, D., van Es, K., & Gray, J. W. Y. (2023). Pluralising critical technical practice. Convergence.
- Gray, J. W. Y. (2023) What do data portals do? Tracing the politics of online devices for making data public. Data & Policy, 5, E10.
- van Geenen, D., Gray, J. W. Y., Bounegru, L., Venturini, T., Meunier, A., & Jacomy, M. (2023). Staying with the trouble of networks. Frontiers in Big Data.
- Bounegru, L. & Gray, J. (eds) (2021) The Data Journalism Handbook: Towards a Critical Data Practice. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
- 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.
- 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.
- Gray, J. (2020) “Data Worlds”. In A. Feigenbaum and A. Alamalhodaei (eds) The Data Storytelling Workbook. London: Routledge.
- 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.
- Gray, J. (2019). Data witnessing: attending to injustice with data in Amnesty International’s Decoders project. Information, Communication & Society. 1–21.
- 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.
- Gray, J., Gerlitz, C. & Bounegru, L. (2018) “Data Infrastructure Literacy”. Big Data & Society.
- Gray, J. (2018) “Three Aspects of Data Worlds”. Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy. Issue 1.
- Gray, J. & Marres, N. (2018) “The Data City as Public Experiment?” (with Noortje Marres), London Ideas, 13th July 2018.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. (2017) “How Could a Global Public Database Help to Tackle Corporate Tax Avoidance?”, Open Democracy, 17th February 2017.
- 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.
- 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. (2016) “Datafication and Democracy”, Juncture, 21st December 2016.
- Gray, J. (2016) “Who will shape the future of the data society?”, cross-posted on LSE Impact Blog, the International Open Data Conference blog and Open Knowledge International blog, 5th October 2016.
- 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. (2015) “A Data Revolution for Whom?”, Open Democracy, 10th July 2015.
- 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.