Data activism

Data activism is a social practice that uses technology and data. It emerged from existing activism sub-cultures such as hacker an open-source movements.[1] Data activism is a specific type of activism which is enabled and constrained by the data infrastructure.[2] It can use the production and collection of digital, volunteered, open data to challenge existing power relations.[3] It is a form of media activism; however, this is not to be confused with slacktivism. It uses digital technology and data politically and proactively to foster social change.[4] Forms of data activism can include digital humanitarianism[5] and engaging in hackathons. Data activism is a social practice that is becoming more well known with the expansion of technology, open-sourced software and the ability to communicate beyond an individual's immediate community. The culture of data activism emerged from previous forms of media activism, such as hacker movements. A defining characteristic of data activism is that ordinary citizens can participate, in comparison to previous forms of media activism where elite skill sets were required to participate.[6] By increasingly involving average users, they are a signal of a change in perspective and attitude towards massive data collection emerging within the civil society realm.[1]

Data activism can be the act of providing data on events or issues that individuals feel have not been properly addressed by those in power. For example, the first deployment of the Ushahidi platform in 2008 in Kenya visualized the post-electoral violence that had been silenced by the government and the new media.[2] The social practice of data activism revolves around the idea that data is political in nature.[7] Data activism allows individuals to quantify a specific issue.[6] By collecting data for a particular purpose, it allows data activists to quantify and expose specific issues. As data infrastructures and data analytics grow, data activists can use evidence from data-driven science to support claims about social issues.[8][2]

  1. ^ a b "about – DATACTIVE". Archived from the original on 2022-06-02. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  2. ^ a b c Gutierrez, Miren (2018). Data activism and social change. London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-3-319-78319-2.
  3. ^ Elmer, Greg; Langlois, Ganaele; Redden, Joanna (July 2015). Comprised Data: From Social Media to Big Data. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 202–225. ISBN 978-1-5013-0650-1.
  4. ^ "Citizens' Media Meets big data: the Emergence of Data Activism". Archived from the original on 7 January 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2017.
  5. ^ Burns, Ryan (October 2014). "Rethinking big data in digital humanitarianism: practices, epistemologies, and social relations". GeoJournal. 80 (4): 477–490. doi:10.1007/s10708-014-9599-x. S2CID 40297692.
  6. ^ a b Milan, Stefania (2016). "Data activism as the new frontier of media activism". In Goubin Yang; Viktor Pickard (eds.). Media Activism. Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and Media Studies Series. SSRN 2882030. Archived from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  7. ^ Kitchin, Rob (2014). The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures & Their Consequences. London: Sage. pp. 165–183. ISBN 978-1-4462-8747-7.
  8. ^ Kitchin, Rob (2014). The Data Revolution: Big Data, Data Infrastructures, and Their Consequences. London: SAGE Publications. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-4462-8747-7.