Recovering critique in an age of datafication

Abstract

This article starts out from the need for critical work on processes of datafication and their consequences for the constitution of social knowledge and the social world. Current social science work on datafication has been greatly shaped by the theoretical approach of Bruno Latour, as reflected in the work of Actor Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies (ANT/STS). The article asks whether this approach, given its philosophical underpinnings, provides sufficient resources for the critical work that is required in relation to datafication. Drawing on Latour’s own reflections about the flatness of the social, it concludes that it does not, since key questions, in particular about the nature of social order cannot be asked or answered within ANT. In the article’s final section, three approaches from earlier social theory are considered as possible supplements to ANT/STS for a social science serious about addressing the challenges that datafication poses for society.

Underdetermination, Assemblage Studies and Educational Technology: Rethinking Causality and Re-Energising Politics

“…What we are observing in the current historical moment is something much more political and altogether unpleasant, as notions of pluralism, structural uncertainty and localised knowledge are appropriated by authoritarian discourses. This argument has been made recently, and compellingly, in the context of media and surveillance studies (Andrejevic, 2020;Couldry, 2020), and it is extremely relevant to our work as education technology researchers. Against a background of aggressive datafication, the rise of obscure infrastructures of prediction, and a shift towards illiberal worldviews, the need for political action is urgent (Zuboff, 2019).…”

“…It is no coincidence that some of the most exciting accounts of underdetermination can be found in feminist techno-science (Wajcman, 2004). This shows that describing unorthodox, neglected relations within and across assemblages can be a critical enactment in its own right, despite a tendency to eschew traditional "human politics", often highlighted by critics of STS and Actor Network Theory (ANT) (e.g., most recently, Couldry, 2020). Another related strength of underdetermination is that it makes "thinking otherwise" possible.…”

“…In the same vein, Couldry warns us against the pitfalls of a flat ontology, where all entities can stake a claim to existence and morality becomes a grey area. Assemblage studies should, in this sense, engage with the "personal and moral tensions" (Couldry, 2020(Couldry, , p. 1143) that underlie the reproduction of the social order, analysing the impacts of those tensions on people's lives, and detecting the underpinning capitalist logics that benefit some at the expense of others (Boltanski, 2011;Elias, 1991;Postone, 1993).…”

Dashboard design and the ‘datafied’ driving experience

“…Here, this re-datafication is enabled by the imposition of these new infrastructures, which seek to re-route navigational activities through them instead. This is what Couldry refers to as a 'general project of social re-construction' (Couldry, 2020(Couldry, : 1140, as 'life actions previously performed elsewhere' (Mejias and Couldry, 2019: 3) are carried out through a digital device. However, complicating the abstractive power that datafication offers, these other sources of navigational information are also rather stubborn: they stand in the waysometimes quite literallyof datafication, limiting the extent to which users might require, or interact with, navigational devices.…”

Kritik an, in und durch Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft. Editorial zum Sonderheft

“…Nick Couldry hat jüngst auf die Homologie datenbasierter Welterklärungen und dem "radikalen Reduktionismus" bzw. "descriptivism" der Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie hingewiesen und gezeigt, dass alleine mit den Mitteln flacher Ontologien einer mustererkennenden Verhaltensanalyse und dem daraus resultierenden mathematischen Weltverstehen kein kraftvoller Widerspruch entgegenzusetzen ist (Couldry, 2020). Couldry erläutert dieses Argument mit Blick auf die gesellschaftliche Dimension und relationale Konzepte von Macht und Ordnung.…”