Table Of ContentTRANSFORMING COMMUNICATIONS –
STUDIES IN CROSS-MEDIA RESEARCH
New Perspectives
in Critical Data Studies
The Ambivalences of Data Power
Edited by
Andreas Hepp · Juliane Jarke · Leif Kramp
Transforming Communications – Studies
in Cross- Media Research
Series Editors
Uwe Hasebrink
Leibniz Institute for Media Research
Hans-Bredow-Institut
Hamburg, Germany
Andreas Hepp
ZeMKI
University of Bremen
Bremen, Germany
We live in times that are characterised by a multiplicity of media: Traditional
media like television, radio and newspapers remain important, but have all
undergone fundamental change in the wake of digitalization. New media
have been emerging with an increasing speed: Internet platforms, mobile
media and the many different software-based communication media we
are recently confronted with as ‘apps’. This process is experiencing yet
another boost from the ongoing and increasingly fast sequence of techno-
logical media innovations. In our late modern social world, communica-
tion processes take place across a variety of media. As a consequence, we
can no longer explain the influences of media by focusing on any one
single medium, its content and possible effects. In order to explain how
media changes are related to transformations in culture and society we
have to consider the cross-media character of communications.
Furthermore, today’s digital media are not only means of communication,
but also of continuous generation and processing of data.
In view of this, the book series ‘Transforming Communications’ is ded-
icated to cross-media communication research and related processes of
datafication. It aims to support all kinds of research that are interested in
processes of communication and datafication taking place across different
kinds of media and that subsequently make media’s transformative poten-
tial accessible. With this profile, the series addresses a wide range of differ-
ent areas of study: media production, representation and appropriation as
well as media technologies and their use, all from a current as well as a
historical perspective. The series ‘Transforming Communications’ lends
itself to different kinds of publication within a wide range of theoretical
and methodological backgrounds. The idea is to stimulate academic
engagement in cross-media issues by supporting the publication of rigor-
ous scholarly work, text books, and thematically-focused volumes, whether
theoretically or empirically oriented.
More information about this series at
https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15351
Andreas Hepp • Juliane Jarke
Leif Kramp
Editors
New Perspectives in
Critical Data Studies
The Ambivalences of Data Power
Editors
Andreas Hepp Juliane Jarke
ZeMKI, Centre for Media, ZeMKI, Centre for Media,
Communication and Information Communication and Information
Research Research
Universität Bremen University of Bremen
Bremen, Germany Bremen, Germany
ifib, Institute for Information
Leif Kramp Management Bremen
ZeMKI, Centre for Media,
University of Bremen
Communication and Information
Bremen, Germany
Research
Universität Bremen
Bremen, Germany
ISSN 2730-9320 ISSN 2730-9339 (electronic)
Transforming Communications – Studies in Cross-Media Research
ISBN 978-3-030-96179-4 ISBN 978-3-030-96180-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96180-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022. This book is an open access
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C
ontents
New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies: The Ambivalences
of Data Power—An Introduction 1
Andreas Hepp, Juliane Jarke, and Leif Kramp
Part I Global Infrastructures and Local Invisibilities 25
Data Power and Counter-power with Chinese Characteristics 27
Jack Linchuan Qiu
Transnational Networks of Influence: The Twitter Presence of
the Quantified Self and Maker Movements’ Organizational
Elites 47
Anne Schmitz, Heiko Kirschner, and Andreas Hepp
The Power of Data Science Ontogeny: Thick Data Studies on
the Indian IT Skill Tutoring Microcosm 75
Nimmi Rangaswamy and Haripriya Narasimhan
Fighting the “System”: A Pilot Project on the Opacity of
Algorithms in Political Communication 97
Jonathan Bonneau, Laurence Grondin-Robillard, Marc Ménard,
and André Mondoux
v
vi CoNTENTS
Indigenous Peoples, Data, and the Coloniality of Surveillance 121
Donna Cormack and Tahu Kukutai
Part II State and Data Justice 143
The Datafied Welfare State: A Perspective from the UK 145
Lina Dencik
The Value Dynamics of Data Capitalism: Cultural Production
and Consumption in a Datafied World 167
Göran Bolin
Mapping Data Justice as a Multidimensional Concept Through
Feminist and Legal Perspectives 187
Claude Draude, Gerrit Hornung, and Goda Klumbytė
Reconfiguring Education Through Data: How Data Practices
Reconfigure Teacher Professionalism and Curriculum 217
Lyndsay Grant
Public Values and Technological Change: Mapping how
Municipalities Grapple with Data Ethics 243
Lotje Siffels, David van den Berg, Mirko Tobias Schäfer, and
Iris Muis
Welfare Data Society? Critical Evaluation of the Possibilities of
Developing Data Infrastructure Literacy from User Data
Workshops to Public Service Media 267
Jenni Hokka
Part III Everyday Practices and Collective Action 295
(Not) Safe to Use: Insecurities in Everyday Data Practices with
Period-Tracking Apps 297
Katrin Amelang
CoNTENTS vii
Community Rankings and Affective Discipline: The Case of
Fandometrics 323
Elena Maris and Nancy Baym
Affinity Spaces as an Analytical Lens for Attending to
Temporality in Critical Data Studies: The Case of COVID-19-
Related, Educational Twitter Communication 345
Irina Zakharova, Juliane Jarke, and Andreas Breiter
“Party like it’s December 31, 1983”: Supporting Data Literacy
at CryptoParties 371
Sigrid Kannengießer
Researching Public Trust in Datafication: Reflections on the
Deliberative Citizen Jury as Method 391
Helen Kennedy, Robin Steedman, and Rhianne Jones
Worker Perspectives on Designs for a Crowdwork Co-operative 415
Jo Bates, Alessandro Checco, and Elli Gerakopoulou
Counting, Debunking, Making, Witnessing, Shielding: What
Critical Data Studies Can Learn from Data Activism During
the Pandemic 445
Stefania Milan
Index 469
n C
otes on ontributors
Katrin Amelang is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer in the
Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research at the University of
Bremen, Germany. Her research is inspired by and situated at the intersec-
tion of cultural anthropology and (feminist) science and technology stud-
ies, particularly in the area of health and medicine. She has received her
doctoral degree from the Humboldt University (HU) of Berlin for an
ethnographic study about the production of everyday life and normality
after organ transplantation. In her current work, she grapples with cultural
processes of digital transformation, especially related to algorithms and
data as well as body-technology relations.
Jo Bates is a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her main
research interests are around the socio-material dynamics that influence
the production and use of data, data cultures and practices, and algorith-
mic bias and transparency.
Nancy Baym is a senior principal research manager at Microsoft Research.
Her research concerns social dynamics of new communication technolo-
gies in personal and professional relationships. Her books include Twitter:
A Biography (co-authored with Jean Burgess, 2020), Playing to the Crowd:
Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection (2018),
Personal Connections in the Digital Age (2010, Second Edition 2014),
Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method (co-edited with Annette
Markham, 2010), and Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom and Online
Community (2000).
ix
x NoTES oN CoNTRIBUToRS
Göran Bolin is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at
Södertörn University, Sweden. His research focuses on datafication, com-
modification, and cultural production and consumption in digital markets.
His most recent research is collected in Value and the Media: Cultural
Production and Consumption in Digital Markets (2011), in the edited vol-
ume Cultural Technologies: The Shaping of Culture in Media and Society
(2012), and Media Generations: Experience, Identity and Mediatised Social
Change (2016). He is a member of the Executive Board of European
Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and Chair
of the section Film, Media and Visual Studies in Academia Europaea.
Jonathan Bonneau is a data scientist in research-creations since 2015,
teaches in the Communication Faculty at the University of Quebec,
Montreal, Canada, and coordinates research and events for the Research
Laboratory on Social Media and Gamification.
Andreas Breiter is Full Professor of Informatics at the University of
Bremen, Germany, member of the Centre for Media, Communication and
Information Research (ZeMKI), and scientific director of the Institute for
Information Management Bremen (ifib). His interdisciplinary research
focuses on management of educational technologies, digital literacies, and
learning analytics. In these fields, his work has been published in interna-
tional and national journals, as well as three books on the mediatization of
German education (2010, 2013, and 2015).
Alessandro Checco is an academic at the University of Roma La Sapienza,
Rome, Italy. His main research interests are crowdsourcing, human com-
putation, distributed private recommender systems, information retrieval,
data privacy, and algorithmic bias.
Donna Cormack is from Kāi Tahu and Kāti Mamoe. She is a researcher
and teacher with joint positions at Te Kupenga Hauora Māori, University
of Auckland, and Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare, University of
otago, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Cormack’s work focuses on the impacts
of racism and colonialism on Māori health, Māori data sovereignty, and
critical, decolonial research practices.
Lina Dencik is a reader in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at
Cardiff University, UK, and co-founder of the Data Justice Lab. She has writ-
ten widely on digital media, resistance, and the politics of data and is the
Principal Investigator of the DATAJUSTICE project funded by an European
Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. Her most recent publications
