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Mapping a Better World: A Journey
Abstract and Figures
This introduction presents data activism as new social practices rooted in technology, which take a critical view towards datafication and use it politically for meaning-making, coordination and change. It offers a conceptual toolkit, including definitions of big data in light of activism. It contains a ‘route map’ explaining the book’s structure, with presentations of Chapter 2, dedicated to the social uses of the data infrastructure; Chapter 3, tackling proactive data activism from different angles and providing taxonomies of activists; Chapter 4, focused on the case study; and Chapter 5, offering brief conclusions. The Ushahidi platform illustrates how organisations use the data infrastructure to understand complexity and generate solutions. A methodological note clarifies how empirical and participant observation, qualitative interviewing and the case study are employed.
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As digital data become increasingly central to education, hopes for educational equity are pinned more strongly on educational technology providers. This paper examines the data practices of edtech providers who are not simply making token gestures towards justice and equality. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism, it presents three data stories. The paper suggests that datafication in education provides a showcase of cruel optimism, i.e., when the object of desire is blocking one’s flourishing. The conclusion considers the constitutive paradoxes of datafied education, and implications for the current phase of edu-technical transformation.
p>Los big data representan nuevos retos y nuevas oportunidades para la ciudadanía. Las prácticas del “activismo de datos” surgen de la intersección de las dimensiones social y tecnológica de la acción humana, por la cual la ciudadanía adopta una postura crítica hacia los big data, que se apropia y manipula para hacer campaña y promover el cambio social. Este artículo teórico explora el surgimiento del activismo de datos como una realidad empírica y una herramienta heurística para estudiar cómo la gente se relaciona políticamente con los big data. Ponemos en contexto este concepto a través de una revisión de literatura académica y ofrecemos una definición del activismo de datos, así como una agenda tentativa para su estudio. Argumentamos que el activismo de datos representa una nueva forma de medio ciudadano que coloca en su mismo centro una aproximación crítica hacia los big data.</p
The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. This flash flood of information-social media, satellite imagery and more-is often referred to as Big Data. Making sense of this data deluge during disasters is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations, which explains why they're turning to Digital Humanitarians. Who exactly are these Digital Humanitarians and how do they make sense of Big Data? Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data Is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response answers this question. Digital Humanitarians are you, me, all of us-volunteers, students and professionals from the world over and from all walks of life. What do they share in common? They desire to make a difference, and they do by rapidly mobilizing online in collaboration with international humanitarian organizations. In virtually real-time, they make sense of vast volumes of social media, SMS and imagery captured from satellites and UAVs to support relief efforts worldwide. How? They craft and leverage ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence. This book charts the sudden and spectacular rise of Digital Humanitarians by sharing their remarkable, real-life stories, highlighting how their humanity coupled with innovative solutions to Big Data is changing humanitarian response forever. Digital Humanitarians will make you think differently about what it means to be humanitarian and will invite you to join the journey online.
Now in paperback for the first time, Social Movements and their Technologies explores the interplay between social movements and their 'liberated technologies'. It analyzes the rise of low-power radio stations and radical internet projects ('emancipatory communication practices') as a political subject, focusing on the sociological and cultural processes at play. It provides an overview of the relationship between social movements and technology, and investigates what is behind the communication infrastructure that made possible the main protest events of the past fifteen years. In doing so, Stefania Milan illustrates how contemporary social movements organize in order to create autonomous alternatives to communication systems and networks, and how they contribute to change the way people communicate in daily life, as well as try to change communication policy from the grassroots. She situates these efforts in a historical context in order to show the origins of contemporary communication activism, and its linkages to media reform campaigns and policy advocacy. © Stefania Milan 2013. Foreword, DeeDee Halleck 2016. All rights reserved.
Faced with the exponential development of Big Data and both its legal and economic repercussions, we are still slightly in the dark concerning the use of digital information. In the perpetual balance between confidentiality and transparency, this data will lead us to call into question how we understand certain paradigms, such as the Hippocratic Oath in medicine. As a consequence, a reflection on the study of the risks associated with the ethical issues surrounding the design and manipulation of this "massive data? seems to be essential. This book provides a direction and ethical value to these significant volumes of data. It proposes an ethical analysis model and recommendations to better keep this data in check. This empirical and ethico-technical approach brings together the first aspects of a moral framework directed toward thought, conscience and the responsibility of citizens concerned by the use of data of a personal nature. Defines Big Data applications in health. Presents the ethical value of the medical datasphere via the description of a model of an ethical analysis of Big Data. Provides the recommendations and steps necessary for successful management and governance of personal health data. Helps readers determine what conditions are essential for the development of the study of Big Data.