#criticaldatastudies — Public Fediverse posts

Datafeudalism describes a system where states, markets, and civil society depend on data, platforms, and services where Big Tech exercises monopolistic control. It is based on four aspects that also differs Datafeudalism from classic Surveillance Capitalism:

1. A hybridization of the functioning of society with the datafication and algorithmic domination of prediction and behavioral modification of individuals and markets,
2. the creation of digital fiefdoms through ubiquitous digital platforms and services,
3. the elimination of any kind of competition and the de-facto monopolization of cyberspace, investment, economies of scale and exploitation of large data sets, and
4. the exertion of Big Tech in political and legislative processes and decisions through lobbying and direct contacts between governments, their agencies and Big Tech.

👉 Saura García, C. (2024). Datafeudalism: The Domination of Modern Societies by Big Tech Companies. Philosophy & Technology, 37(3), 90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00777-1

#criticaldatastudies #datafeudalism #data

Happy to share my newest writing «Missing Data as Political Force» with you.

While "missing data" is often considered a problem, as in the context of adequate representation, the current authoritarian wave shows that data can offer recognition and oppression. For example, ICE's brutal use of personal data to target individuals with migration backgrounds. Conversely, restricting access to data and services can be employed as political pressure.

To navigate this "paradox of exposure" (as coined by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein) and missing data's relational nature (as argued by Alessandra Jungs de Almeida), I draw on theories of social and data justice, namely Bonnycastle’s continuum of social justice and Fraser’s abnormal justice, to show how missing data lies between social equality and oppression and can be analysed based on (mis)distribution, (mis)recognition, and (mis)representation.

• Full Issue: https://www.diid.it/diid/index.php/diid/issue/view/diid-87
• My paper: https://www.diid.it/diid/index.php/diid/article/view/frischknecht

#criticaldatastudies #datactivism #missingdata #politicalforce

"Research data management has become an inevitable part of research, and both funding agencies and publishers nowadays require open and reusable data. This article focuses on one of the most prominent initiatives promoting reusability of research data – the FAIR guiding principles – nowadays widely accepted as the new standard for research data management. Through semi-structured interviews, we investigated researchers’ experiences of practicing FAIR research data management within the context of a multi-stakeholder project within the field of health research funded by the European Commission. Our analysis showed that the informants’ experiences of practicing FAIR research data management differed largely depending on which scientific tradition they belonged to; something that previous studies have attributed to shortcomings in the current infrastructure, lack of resources and persistent cultures around data sharing in the wider scientific community. Drawing on previous work presented within the field of Critical Data Studies (CDS), we argue that our findings point to a more fundamental problem; namely the failure to recognize that the FAIR framework is built on a positivist conceptualization of data. We argue that if FAIR is to have any chance of succeeding in its ambitions to be as inclusive and all-encompassing as it wants to be, these insights need to be taken more into account and provide some potential pathways."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517251349157

#DataScience #CriticalDataStudies #DataManagement #DataGovernance #FAIR

Very happy to see that this special issue of Sociologisk Forskning is now out in the world and I am honored to have my paper included!
"This ground truth is muddy anyway: Ground truth data assemblages for medical AI development"
Check it out here: https://doi.org/10.37062/sf.62.27826
(Open access)! #STS #sociology #criticalAI #criticaldatastudies

Special Issue “Big Visual Data als neue Form des Wissens” – jetzt online-first
Die Einleitung zum Sonderheft der Schweizerischen Zeitschrift für Soziologie ist jetzt verfügbar. Sechs Beiträge erkunden Potenziale & Herausforderungen visueller Daten in der Wissensproduktion. Print: Juli 2025.
👉 https://www.socio-journal.ch/article/view/7178/7919
#BigImageData #Wissensproduktion #Epistemologie #Soziologie #CriticalDataStudies #CriticalAlgorithmStudies

Critical Data Study fresh from the press!

In this contribution to the latest special issue of the Swiss Journal of Sociology, I critically examine how Convolutional Neural Networks can be used to explore historical photo collections. In essence, the writing examines potentials and challenges of human-machine collaboration by juxtaposing human and machine ways of seeing. Clustering 48,000 negatives from the collection Ernst Brunner the analysis reveals how sociotechnical imaginaries in infrastructure act as an epistemological Trojan horse and emphasizes the need for thematic data sets to utilize machine-learning approaches for visual data analysis.

Open Access ➡️ https://www.socio-journal.ch/article/view/6907

Thank you Sebastian W. Hoggenmüller for the great editing, to Kurt Fendt and Tobias Hodel for their critical remarks and to the anonymous reviewers who have given tough but constructive feedback.

#digitalhumanities #criticaldatastudies #datavisualization #artificialintelligence

"In recent years, critical data studies from the Global South have gained traction, generating debates on power, knowledge production, and the politics of data. While these discussions challenge universalist frameworks, they also risk essentializing the ‘Global South’, requiring a more nuanced approach. This special issue centres Latin America as a site of theoretical, methodological, and empirical inquiry, highlighting its potential to generate new insights into datafication, power, and artificial intelligence. Rather than treating Latin America as a passive recipient of Global North theories, this issue foregrounds its epistemological and methodological contributions to global debates. Engaging with frameworks such as capitalism, coloniality, and dependency theory, the articles explore the region's heterogeneity and intellectual traditions in social sciences, humanities, and science and technology studies. This introduction proposes a research agenda for Latin American critical data studies – one that reflects historical legacies while envisioning possible data futures through interdisciplinary and critical engagement. It interrogates the politics of knowledge production, emphasizing the need for non-extractive, dialogical approaches to studying data in, from, and with Latin America. By centering Latin American scholarship and experiences, this special issue challenges dominant narratives in critical data studies and offers alternative theoretical perspectives that are globally informed yet locally grounded."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517251330160

#LatinAmerica #GlobalSouth #CriticalDataStudies #STS #AI #Datafication #Capitalism #Coloniality #DependencyTheory

Read more here: www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lubas/i-uoh-... (It says admission closed on the English version of the page, but open until April 15 through antagning.se ) #STS #AI #criticaldatastudies

The Data-driven Society: Socia...

🎉 Hallo Welt!

Das Fachgebiet #Medienbildung der @tuberlin zieht gerade von @[email protected] hierher um.

Wir forschen und lehren zu Bildung in der digitalen Welt, kreativen Praktiken und kritischen Perspektiven auf Algorithmen, Code & Daten.

Hier gibt’s Updates zu unseren Projekten, Publikationen & Veranstaltungen.

Folgt uns schon jetzt für Diskussionen, Denkanstöße & spannende Einblicke! 💬👀

#Digitalität #TUBerlin #SETUB #critcode #criticaldatastudies #Wissenschaftskommunikation

Happy to share that a few weeks ago I successfully defended my dissertation as the first doctoral student of Digital Humanities at the University of Bern (insigni cum laude).

My study under the title «Generative Data Design: Data Visualization as Argumentative Process in The Digital Humanities» developed a practical and critical design method that conceptualizes data visualization as an argumentative process (contrary to the idea of visualizations being neutral and objective) supporting the interpretation of digital cultural heritage collections.

A great thank you goes to my supervisors Tobias Hodel and Ulrike Felsing (University of Bern) as well as Kurt Fendt (MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing). And of course to all my friends, family and colleagues who supported this journey in a diversity of ways. 🙏

Next up: Publication process.

#digitalhumanities #datavisualization #criticaldatastudies #generativedesign #desingresearch

👉 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁 – 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄! Learn more and register today: https://impact.dataschool.nl/events/making-a-difference-societal-impact-through-collaborative-research/

#CriticalDataStudies #Academia #ActionResearch #SocietalChange #CollaborativeResearch

Just heard a great talk (“Borderland Circuitry: How Racist Gang Profiling on the Street Becomes Hard Data and Enables Land Destruction”) by Ana Muñiz

Book is here: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/borderland-circuitry/paper

#STS #CriticalDataStudies #Commodon #Borderlands #CriticalCriminology

New #openaccess book on "Dialogues in Data Power" edited by @juliane and @J0bates 🎊

I contributed to a chapter on “In/visibilities in Data Studies: Methods, Tools, and Interventions”: https://jonathangray.org/2024/10/17/invisibilities-data-studies

#datastudies #criticaldatastudies

Glad to be part of new #openaccess book on "Collaborative Research in the Datafied Society" edited by @gastev @kfvanes @TraceyPLauriault on @AmsterdamUPress.

Here's my chapter on “Speculative Data Infrastructures: Prototyping a Public Database on Corporate Tax Avoidance”: https://jonathangray.org/2024/10/11/speculative-data-infrastructures

#mediastudies #taxjustice #taxavoidance #datastudies #criticaldatastudies #criticaldatapractice #teaching #commodon #sts #newmedia #internetstudies

Data Stories now has a Call for Papers on #ResearchCreation and #CriticalDataStudies for the #AAG2025 Annual Meeting in Detroit. Please see our blog for further details: https://datastories.maynoothuniversity.ie/?p=444

18 PhD positions in new research group about Communicative Artificial Intelligence (ComAI).

Across 10 projects we ask: How does societal communication transform when ComAI becomes part of it?

More information on https://comai.space/

#AcademicJobs #PhDJobs #Chatbots #CriticalAlgorithmStudies #CriticalDataStudies

Our members @danvers and @DrPinkeee have organised a talk with the title “You’ve gotta fight for your rights!”.

Join them on June 25 (online and at Uni Bielefeld) to learn how to enact your #datarights!

#dataliteracy #criticaldatastudies #datafication #digitalselfdefense
@medienbildung

Register for free: https://www.bigdataliteracy.net/2024/06/11/youve-gotta-fight-for-your-rights/

@sts #STS #Professorship #call at #GoetheUniversity, Frankfurt/Germany.

Are you interested in Critical Reflection and/or Governance of Computational Technologies?

consider applying at Frankfurt to work with us
https://www.c3s-frankfurt.de/workshop-2

#Computation
#digitalisation
#digital
#CriticalDataStudies
#Code

#ScienceAndTechnologyStudies

A new paper on AI incidents and 'networked trouble' from our PhD researcher Tommy Shane: https://kingsdh.net/2023/12/20/ai-incidents-networked-trouble/

#ai #artificialintelligence #aitrouble #algorithms #algorithmstudies #datastudies #criticaldatastudies #digitalmethods #trouble #feministsts #sts #mediastudies #commodon

This was a part of our cozy hybrid workshop in Bochum on data infra, knowledge creation and planetary matter. Thanks to all participants for a great experience,

@mel_hogan @Aepasek @tschuetz @laurawatts and more!

https://www.virtuelle-lebenswelten.de/blog-post/knowledge-production-data-infrastructures-and-planetary-matter

#sts #mediastudies #criticaldatastudies

On Monday 9 October, I gave a workshop titled "Knowledge graphs as a means to critically describe museum collections" for the students of @magdalena in the Critical Data Studies programme.

The workshop was conceptualized as a collaboration between critical collection studies and critical data studies. Here is a short description:

https://nullmuseum.hypotheses.org/938

#collections #criticaldatastudies #museums #knowledgegraphs

Scheduled for December, a contribution in the collected volume "AI in Museums. Reflections, Perspectives and Applications" transcript, edited by @sonjathiel and @jobernha

with a little subtweet on the digital art history × AI hype Tw*tteria😉

#ai #criticaldatastudies #algorithms #digitalmuseum #digitalcollections #artificialintelligence

Can #AI be turned #green? Bring critical and empirically informed voices about the #environmentalcosts of #IT to the conversation on the 5th Oct, 3-4pm cest, advertised by https://mastodon.social/@dawnnafus/111132042424833670

#Environmental #STS @sts @stefanlaser @Aepasek #CriticalDataStudies