Scraping the demos. Digitalization, web scraping and the democratic project

Abstract

Scientific, political and bureaucratic elites use epistemic practices like "big data analysis" and "web scraping" to create representations of the citizenry and to legitimize policymaking. I develop the concept of "demos scraping" for these practices of gaining information about citizens (the "demos") through automated analysis of digital trace data which are re-purposed for political means. This article critically engages with the discourse advocating demos scraping and provides a conceptual analysis of its democratic implications. It engages with the promise of demos scraping advocates to reduce the gap between political elites and citizens and highlights how demos scraping is presented as a superior form of accessing the "will of the people" and to increase democratic legitimacy. This leads me to critically discuss the implications of demos scraping for political representation and participation. In its current form, demos scraping is technocratic and de-politicizing; and the larger political and economic context in which it takes place makes it unlikely that it will reduce the gap between elites and citizens. From the analytic perspective of a post-democratic turn, demos scraping is an attempt of late modern and digitalized societies to address the democratic paradox of increasing citizen expectations coupled with a deep legitimation crisis.

Social Media and the Digital Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

“…This is especially evident in relation to ‘data driven elections’ (Bennett and Lyon, 2019). This term does not merely capture the fact that politics employs means of advertising and targeting (such instrumental appropriation is unsurprising); the development goes deeper: increasingly, a notion of democracy is being articulated in which the reading of singularised preferences, rather than the civic expression of opinion through active participation, is being interpreted as a democratic principle (Ulbricht, 2020: 431). The idea of representation as an active and reciprocal process that is creative and also stimulates the political public sphere is therefore withdrawn (Berg et al, 2020).…”

Democracia Digital

“…El concepto de "democracia de datos" (Susskind, 2018, p. 246), por ejemplo, imagina la democracia digital como un proyecto científico y de gestión orientado a perfeccionar la base de información como condición para elaborar políticas efectivas. Algunas prácticas epistémicas, como el "demos scraping" o "raspado del demos", que buscan generar representaciones de la ciudadanía basadas en datos, reflejan la idea de que el análisis de datos puede "brindar conocimientos sin precedente sobre ciertas poblaciones a quienes elaboran las políticas" (Ulbricht, 2020, p. 429, véase Khanna, 2017. Enfoques como la democracia de datos son criticados por encarnar el espíritu del liberalismo paternalista (König, 2019).…”

Web-Scraping Teknikan Oinarritutako Azpiegitura Informatikoak. Xerka Online eta Minerva aplikazioak

“…Web-scraping software programek erabiltzen duten teknika da, weborrietatik informazioa modu automatikoan (erabiltzaileak parte hartu gabe) lortzeko [1,2,3]. Web-scraping erabiltzen duen aplikazioari web-scraper deritzo.…”