Abstract

GUTIERREZ, Miren. Participation in a datafied environment: questions about data literacy. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2019, vol.36, pp.37-55. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.36(2019).2342.

In politics, participation can be understood as citizen involvement in decision making, including mechanisms for people to intervene in political and social choices, among other areas of action. Those mechanisms are crucial since democracy hinges on civic participation in political life. However, in the big data era, participation is not possible without people's access to and control of data; that is, civil rights become digital rights. This article deals with data literacy as a filter for participation in a datafied environment and the role of ordinary people in data processes. Because participation in a datafied world depends of people's ability to enter the fray, questions about where lines can be drawn to separate experts from non-experts (i.e. ordinary citizens) and whether intervention in the data infrastructure requires a degree of data literacy for effective participation constitute a relevant discussion for the practice and theory of activism as a form of political or civic engagement. Political engagement is understood here as coordinated action aimed at problem-solving, campaigning and assisting others. Namely, to rescue political participation in a datafied domain, a degree of skill is necessary. Drawing from a taxonomy of data mining involvement (Kennedy, 2016) and empirical cases of crisis mapping (Gutierrez, 2018a; 2018b), this theoretical article offers conceptualisations to think about what participation entails today.

Keywords : activism; datafication; data activism; ordinary people; participation; technopolitics.

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