A 141. Yates, S. J., Robson, L., Rice, R. E., & Carmi, E. (2020). Chapter 18. ESRC Review: Data and representation. In S. J. Yates & R. E. Rice (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of digital technology and society (pp. 501-525). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
This chapter
describes the analyses and
results for the ESRC Domain of Data and Representation, guided by the
question:
“how do we live with and trust the algorithms and data analysis used to
shape
key features of our lives?” It first provides an initial overview of
the major
insights from the literature review and analysis, the Delphi surveys,
and
workshop discussions about the relevant range of the concepts of data
and
representation in a digital age. The resulting focus early on is mostly
about
the technology, development and organizations, but later emphasizes
data issues,
and less frequently policy, information, communication, technology, and
research. Fourteen main topics emerged,
including Global and urban culture,
Governance, Twitter and politics, Cybercrime, Google, Law and hate
speech, Big
data, Science and methods, Health, Gender, Consumer services, Ethics
and
impact, Mobile, and Social media. The chapter provides brief summaries
of publications dealing with three key issues emerging from these
topics: data
methods, data sources, ethics and impact, and data representation and
other
domains. The analyses also highlighted theory, methods, and approaches
in the
literature, showing predominantly inductive work, emphasizing reviews,
commentary, or secondary data. The main theoretical sources were by far
sociology, and then psychology, and communications and media. The
plurality of
those articles involving research used case studies, and a mix of data
collection methods. The chapter ends with a discussion of future
research and
scoping questions (for example, with Social impacts, Privacy and
surveillance,
Citizens/everyday life, and Open data/algorithm
transparency/accountability)
and research challenges (Methods, Social
theory and social questions, Access to data, Data literacy, Education,
Ethics,
Inequality/Exclusion/Inclusion/Divides, and Interdisciplinarity).
Handbook Table of Contents (with live links to all chapter abstracts)