Public Data Cultures
Public Data Cultures will be out on Polity in autumn 2025.
You can pre-order the book here.
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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
book talks
If youâre potentially interested in hosting a book talk, you can fill in this form.
Upcoming
- Talk on public data cultures, critical data practices and repurposing digital media for collective inquiry at Seoul National University (South Korea), 23rd June 2025
- Public Data Cultures, Fudan University (China), 30th June 2025
- Cultivating Data Natures, Lancaster University (UK), 9th July 2025
Past
- Public Data Cultures, University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy), 22nd May 2025
- Keynote at The Datafied Web, University of Siegen (Germany), 5-6th June 2025
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) - âdata not found is a dataset of datasets that were sought but not found on data portals around the worldâ
- data.gov.uk at 1 year/second (2009-2022) (video) - as per Internet Archiveâs Wayback Machine, inspired by Richard Rogersâs âDoing Web history with the Internet Archive: screencast documentariesâ
- 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) âThe Datafication of Forests? From the Wood Wide Web to the Internet of Trees.â In Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (eds.) Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Gray, J. (2020) âThe Data Epic: Visualisation Practices for Narrating Life and Death at a Distance.â In H. Kennedy and M. Engebretsen (eds) Data Visualization in Society. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
- Gray, J. (2020) âData Worldsâ. 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 Internationalâs Decoders project. Information, Communication & Society. 1â21.
- Gray, J. & Bounegru, L. (2019) âWhat a Difference a Dataset Makes? Data Journalism And/As Data Activism.â 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) âData Infrastructure Literacyâ. Big Data & Society.
- Gray, J. (2018) âThree Aspects of Data Worldsâ. Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy. Issue 1.
- Gray, J. & Marres, N. (2018) âThe Data City as Public Experiment?â (with Noortje Marres), London Ideas, 13th July 2018.
- LĂ€mmerhirt, D., Gray, J., Venturini, T. & Meunier, A. (2018) âAdvancing sustainability together? Citizen-generated data and the Sustainable Development Goals.â Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, Open Knowledge International and Public Data Lab.
- Gray, J. (2017).âQuand les mondes de donnĂ©es sont redistribuĂ©s: Open Data, infrastructures de donnĂ©es et dĂ©mocratieâ [âRedistributing Data Worlds: Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Democracyâ]. Statistique et SociĂ©tĂ©, 5(3), 29â34.
- Cobham, A., Gray, J. & Murphy, R. (2017) âWhat Do They Pay? Towards a Public Database to Account for the Economic Activities and Tax Contributions of Multinational Corporationsâ. City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC) Working Paper Series, 2017/01.
- Gray, J. (2017) âHow Could a Global Public Database Help to Tackle Corporate Tax Avoidance?â, Open Democracy, 17th February 2017.
- Gray, J., Bounegru, L., Milan, S. & Ciuccarelli, P. (2016) âWays of Seeing Data: Towards a Critical Literacy for Data Visualisations as Research Objects and Research Devicesâ. In Sebastian Kubitschko and Anne Kaun (eds.), Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Gray, J., Lammerhirt D., & Bounegru L. (2016) âChanging What Counts: How Can Citizen-Generated and Civil Society Data Be Used as an Advocacy Tool to Change Official Data Collection?.â Open Knowledge International and the CIVICUS DataShift.
- Gray, J. (2016) âDatafication and Democracyâ, Juncture, 21st December 2016.
- Gray, J. (2016) âWho will shape the future of the data society?â, cross-posted on LSE Impact Blog, the International Open Data Conference blog and Open Knowledge International blog, 5th October 2016.
- Gray, J. (2015) âDemocratising the Data Revolution: A Discussion Paperâ. Open Knowledge International.
- Gray, J. & Davies, T. (2015) âFighting Phantom Firms in the UK: From Opening Up Datasets to Reshaping Data Infrastructures?â. 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) âOpen Budget Data: Mapping the Landscapeâ. Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam), the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency (GIFT) and Open Knowledge International.
- Gray, J. (2015) âA Data Revolution for Whom?â, Open Democracy, 10th July 2015.
- Gray, J. (2014) âTowards a Genealogy of Open Dataâ. Working paper given at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Glasgow, 3-6th September 2014.