"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

NEW REPORT: CDT & Coworker.org explore how workers engage with #workplace #datafication when given the chance to learn & deliberate. We examine their policy preferences, how discussion shapes their views, & whether knowledge boosts advocacy for their rights. https://cdt.org/insights/what-do-workers-want-a-cdt-coworker-deliberative-poll-on-workplace-surveillance-and-datafication/

#Privacy #Datafication #Surveillance: "I have to confess something: I find privacy boring. When I first received Pressly’s book, I groaned. Within the first few pages, I realized my mistake. The highest compliment I can pay “The Right to Oblivion” is that it rescues privacy from the lawyers. Pressly’s version of privacy has a moral content, not just a legal one. And this gives it relevance to a broader set of intellectual and political pursuits.

There is a wealth of scholarship on surveillance. Simone Browne has described its racial and racist dimensions, and Karen Levy and others have examined how digital monitoring can discipline and disempower workers. But privacy is rarely the central preoccupation in this work; other concerns, such as justice and equality, figure more prominently. With Pressly, however, privacy is defined in such a way as to seem vital to such critiques. Lawyers like to make privacy about process. Pressly makes it about power.

If that were everything the book did, it would be enough. But “The Right to Oblivion” is actually much stranger than my summary thus far suggests. The reason that Pressly feels so strongly about imposing limits on datafication is not only because of the many ways that data can be used to damage us. It is also because, in his view, we lose something precious when we become information, regardless of how it is used. In the very moment when data are made, Pressly believes, a line is crossed. “Oblivion” is his word for what lies on the other side."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/what-is-privacy-for

Here's a gentle reminder for all you web archivists, media historians, data-savvy artists, and STSy friends of technology: Our call for contributions to next year's THE DATAFIED WEB at Siegen University is open until October 15. Be in touch!

We are looking forward to your entries on Easychair: https://easychair.org/cfp/RESAW2025.

Open access book on #education & #datafication

Critical Datafication Literacy. A Framework and Practical Approaches

https://www.transcript-verlag.de/media/pdf/d7/02/a9/oa9783839473788grkwLFhNpxcon.pdf

I wrote a book on #education about #datafication:

"Critical Datafication Literacy. A Framework and Practical Approaches" is available #OpenAccess:
https://transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7378-4

It includes:
Analysis of critical data literacies & established education theories
Examination of online #CriticalDataLiteracy tools
Development of critical datafication literacy framework
Pedagogical & design strategies for critical education about datafication

I'm happy to announce the publication of the collection

From Centre to Periphery and Beyond

that resulted from the 24th Workshop on NS camps and killing sites.

https://metropol-verlag.de/produkt/from-centre-to-periphery-and-beyond-the-history-and-memory-of-national-socialist-camps-and-killing-sites/

#datafixation Love this concept. A "wordplay that combines #datafication and #fixation. The article showcases how the datafication of #education presents compelling arguments about the importance and usefulness of #data, while remaining silent about the negative consequences of reducing students, learning, teaching, and education to superficial indicators. Such a one-sided view meets the criteria of fixation as anunhealthy #attachment." Pekka Mertala #edtech
https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839465820-003

PUBLICATION ALERT!!

“Spaces for Datafication: How Datafication Transforms Media Industries“

This chapter, which I have worked on for a *long* time, examines #datafication as a useful framework for understanding current media transformations and argues that it is not homogeneous but rather a body of different but connected and interdependent processes across five “spaces”.

This is important to me, and I’m thrilled to see it published. Feel free to dm me for a copy.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39940-4_10

Important dissection of the feedback loop between bot therapists and the people who use them. Crisis hotlines 'take people's moments of crisis and turn them into an abundance of data' - Emily Bender. The 'whole political economy of this is so f***ed', it leads to a 'monetisation moment' - Alex Hanna. It's the 'cannibalisation of care to escort profit' - Hannah Zeavin. 'Mystery AI HypeTheatre', 'Beware The Robo-Therapist' #AI #Datafication #Bots https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/13544940-episode-13-beware-the-robo-therapist-feat-hannah-zeavin-june-8-2023
@emilymbender @alex

Hi everyone, is this thing on?

Big thanks to #AoIR (hi @admin1) for creating this instance and inviting your members to join.

Quick introduction: I'm a second year PhD at University of Westminster, currently working on my research design to audit design features in direct messaging apps. Be great to connect with likeminded researchers into #politicaleconomy, #datafication, #actornetworktheory, #digitalmethods and pushing for more #socialgood to come through in the tech world

Happy to see that the entries of the new ambitious Encyclopedia of Public Policy are starting to be published online.
My entry "Big Data: Automated Decision-Making in Public Policy" is online already. Check it out!

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90434-0_59-1

I hope that it can be useful for research and studies into #ADM #AI #datafication of public sector and public policy.

The time has come. I have got to get past the initial pains (pangs?) and build a community here. Mourning Twitter but time to move on...

Please boost

New edited volume on #datafication — rooted in the Media of Communication group from the University of Siegen.

Practice emphasis, #ethnomethodology and is full #OpenAccess

https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-5561-2/interrogating-datafication/

I had the honor of writing the epilogue, which is always great fun because one can claim sweepingGrand Things but need prove nothing.

Digitize Again Forever
http://www.davidribes.com/storage/Ribes%202022%20Digitize%20Again%20Forever.pdf

#STS #datastudies #infrastructurestudies #communication #media @steffen

It seems #introduction is now THE thing here. I’m an Italian #sociologist of #digital #media based in #Milan. I joined #EUKidsOnline in 2007 and studied #children & youth’s online experiences since. Currently working on #DigitalSkills & children’s wellbeing, and the #datafication of childhood and family life. In 2021 i published a book with Andra Siibak Datafied Childhoods https://www.peterlang.com/document/1140627 Mum of a 6yo, dog lover, worried for climate crisis & fascist Italian government