Digital Culture & Society (DCS)

... with the editors

1. Why a book on this subject?

The special issue comes out of a conference organized by Mark Coté and Paolo Gerbaudo, at King's College London, in May 2015. It was supported by the AHRC funded research project, ›Our Data Ourselves‹ and the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London. We offer a critical dialogue on the myriad political dimensions of Big Data, from how it is changing politics, and research methods on political phenomena to its emerging role as a new matrix of contested power-knowledge relations.

2. What relevance does this subject have in the current research debates?

This special issue resonates with critical research grappling with the social, cultural and political dimensions of Big Data. On the one hand, this entails methodological questions data-driven knowledge production. On the other it includes the turn to new materialism as we claim that any political reckoning must equally account for the materiality of data, alongside the logic guiding its processes and the practices that deploy its tools.

3. What new perspectives does your book open up?

We suggest that a political critique of Big Data needs to first address issues of data access and agency. This includes a more collective understanding of the technical objects of datafication, as well as increased ability to critically engage the algorithmic power of data analytic. Such material engagement is interdisciplinary and moves critique beyond the limitations of discursive or social constructivist models to enable more strategic engagements with data in both scholarship and activism.

4. Who would you preferably like to discuss your book with?

Our interdisciplinary approach to the politics of Big Data is open to scholars and activists interested in this crucial site of contestation and struggle.

5. Your book in only one sentence:

It opens up critical dialogue on the myriad political and power-knowledge dimensions of Big Data.