The Data Revolution
Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences
- Rob Kitchin - NUI Maynooth, Ireland
- Evelyn Ruppert, Goldsmiths, University of London
"Deconstructs the hype around the ‘data revolution’ to carefully guide us through the histories and the futures of ‘big data.’ The book skilfully engages with debates from across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences in order to produce a critical account of how data are enmeshed into enormous social, economic, and political changes that are taking place."
- Mark Graham, University of Oxford
Traditionally, data has been a scarce commodity which, given its value, has been either jealously guarded or expensively traded. In recent years, technological developments and political lobbying have turned this position on its head. Data now flow as a deep and wide torrent, are low in cost and supported by robust infrastructures, and are increasingly open and accessible.
A data revolution is underway, one that is already reshaping how knowledge is produced, business conducted, and governance enacted, as well as raising many questions concerning surveillance, privacy, security, profiling, social sorting, and intellectual property rights.
In contrast to the hype and hubris of much media and business coverage, The Data Revolution provides a synoptic and critical analysis of the emerging data landscape. Accessible in style, the book provides:
- A synoptic overview of big data, open data and data infrastructures
- An introduction to thinking conceptually about data, data infrastructures, data analytics and data markets
- Acritical discussion of the technical shortcomings and the social, political and ethical consequences of the data revolution
- An analysis of the implications of the data revolution to academic, business and government practices
| What are data? |
| Kinds of data |
| Data, information, knowledge, wisdom |
| Framing data |
| Thinking critically about databases and data infrastructures |
| Data assemblages and the data revolution |
| Data holdings, data archives and data infrastructures |
| Rationale for research data infrastructures |
| The challenges of building data infrastructures |
| The challenges of building data infrastructuresData brokers and markets |
| Open data |
| Linked data |
| The case for open data |
| The economics of open data |
| Concerns with respect to opening data |
| Volume |
| Exhaustive |
| Resolution and indexicality |
| Relationality |
| Velocity |
| Variety |
| Flexibility |
| The enablers of big data |
| Sources of big data |
| Directed Data |
| Automated data |
| Volunteered data |
| Pre-analytics |
| Machine learning |
| Data mining and pattern recognition |
| Data visualisation and visual analytics |
| Statistical analysis |
| Prediction, simulation and optimization |
| Governing people |
| Managing organisations |
| Leveraging value and producing capital |
| Creating better places |
| The fourth paradigm in science? |
| The re-emergence of empiricism |
| The fallacies of empiricism |
| Data-driven science |
| Computational social sciences and digital humanities |
| Deserts and deluges |
| Access |
| Data quality, veracity and lineage |
| Data integration and interoperability |
| Poor analysis and ecological fallacies |
| Skills and human resourcing |
| Data shadows and dataveillance |
| Privacy |
| Data security |
| Profiling, social sorting and redlining |
| Secondary uses, control creep and anticipatory governance |
| Modes of governance and technological lock-ins |
| Understanding data and the data revolution |
| Researching data assemblages |
| Final thoughts |
Supplements
Kitchin’s powerful, authoritative work deconstructs the hype around the ‘data revolution’ to carefully guide us through the histories and the futures of ‘big data.’ The book skilfully engages with debates from across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences in order to produce a critical account of how data are enmeshed into enormous social, economic, and political changes that are taking place. It challenges us to rethink data, information and knowledge by asking - who benefits and who might be left out; what these changes mean for ethics, economy, surveillance, society, politics; and ultimately, whether big data offer answers to big questions. By tackling the promises and potentials as well as the perils and pitfalls of our data revolution, Kitchin shows us that data doesn’t just reflect the world, but also changes it.
With a lucid prose and without hyperbole, Kitchin explains the complexities and disruptive effects of what he calls ‘the data revolution’. The book brilliantly provides an overview of the shifting socio-technical assemblages that are shaping the uses of data today. Carefully distinguishing between big data and open data, and exploring various data infrastructures, Kitchin vividly illustrates how the data landscape is rapidly changing and calls for a revolution in how we think about data.
An incredibly well written and accessible book which provides readers who will be curious about the buzz around the idea of big data with: (a) an organising framework rooted in social theory (important given the dominance of technical writings) through which to conceptualise big data; (b) detailed understandings of each actant in the various data assemblages with fresh and novel theoretical constructions and typologies of each actant; (c) the contours of a critical examination of big data (whose interests does it serve, where, how and why). These are all crucial developments its seems to me and I think this book will become a trail blazer because of them. This is going to be a biggie citation wise and a seminal work.
Data has become a new key word for our times. This is just the book I have been waiting for: a detailed and critical analysis that will make us think carefully about how data participate in social, cultural and spatial relations.
By carefully analysing data as a complex socio-technical assemblage, Rob Kitchin discusses thought-provoking aspects of data as a technical, economic and social construct that are often ignored or forgotten despite the increasing focus on data production and usage in contemporary life. This book unpacks the complexity of data as elements of knowledge production, and not only provide readers from a variety of disciplinary areas with useful conceptual framings, but also with a challenging set of open issues to be further explored and engaged with as the “data revolution” progresses.
