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The uptake of data-driven hiring systems has introduced important questions about how decisions about who is eligible for jobs, and why, are changing. To explore this, the article draws on interviews with prominent providers of data-driven hiring systems and analyses the way they situate the provision of tools in relation to existing hiring processes, what problems they claim to solve, and the nature of the solutions they provide. While the ideological grounds of datafication have been well-established, privileging data-driven knowledge production as less biased, more objective, and with superior insights than other forms of information-gathering, in hiring, we find legitimisation frames extend to ways in which work and workers should be organised and assessed. Drawing on the notion of 'regimes of justification', we argue that such legitimisation frames in turn invoke certain normative expectations about what is just and unjust organised around a vision of the common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As data collection and analysis are increasingly deployed for a variety of both commercial and public services, state-citizen relations are becoming infused by algorithmic and automated decision making. Yet as citizens, we have few possibilities to understand and intervene into the roll-out of data systems, and to participate in policy and decision making about uses of data and artificial intelligence (AI). This introductory article unpacks the nexus of datafication and participation, reviews some of the editors' own research on this subject, and provides an overview of the contents of the Special Section "Civic Participation in the Datafied Society.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines a recently developed proposal for a border control system called iBorderCtrl, designed to detect deception based on facial recognition technology and the measurement of micro-expressions, termed 'biomarkers of deceit'. Funded under the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, the system is analysed in relation to the wider political economy of 'emotional AI' and the history of deception detection technologies. We then move on to interrogate the design of iBorderCtrl using publicly available documents and assess the assumptions and scientific validation underpinning the project design. Finally, drawing on a Bayesian analysis we outline statistical fallacies in the foundational premise of mass screening and argue that it is very unlikely that the model that iBorderCtrl provides for deception detection would work in practice. By interrogating actual systems in this way, we argue that we can begin to question the very premise of the development of data-driven systems, and emotional AI and deception detection in particular, pushing back on the assumption that these systems are fulfilling the tasks they claim to be attending to and instead ask what function such projects carry out in the creation of subjects and management of populations. This function is not merely technical but, rather, we argue, distinctly political and forms part of a mode of governance increasingly shaping life opportunities and fundamental rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of digital activism in relation to trade unionism is a crucial area of concern at a time when conditions of work, and the ability to protect workers' rights, have been transformed by a congruence of technological developments, neoliberal ideology and rising corporate power. In this brief essay, we situate digital activism in the context of the political cultures of trade unionism, highlighting in particular three fundamental divisions that have marked their development: 1) reform vs. revolution; 2) internationalism vs. nationalism; and 3) the relationship with political parties and business. Whilst this has meant that there have been elements of conflict and factional alliances within the labour movement, the dominant form of trade unionism, certainly in Europe and North America, advanced a position based on a corporatist model rooted in hierarchical structures, centralized control and formal routes of negotiation, most notably through collective bargaining agreements, and often centred on a strong sense of national identity. Digital activism and the uprisings of recent years have pointed to the possibilities for wider, societal and more militant forms of resistance to emerge that have also been reflected in changes in the labour movement. Only by integrating digital activism as part of more horizontal worker-driven forms of organization and articulating an alternative vision of society (including the organization of technology) in alliance with other communities and social movements, can the labour movement start to rise to the challenges of the current crises facing the world system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates on the temporal shift associated with digitalization often stress notions of speed and acceleration. With the advent of big data and predictive analytics, the time-compressing features of digitalization are compounded within a distinct operative logic: that of pre-emption. The temporality of pre-emption attempts to project the past into a simulated future that can be acted upon in the present; a temporality of pure imminence. Yet, inherently paradoxical, pre-emption is marked by myriads of contrasts and frictions as it is caught between the supposedly all-encompassing knowledge of the data-processing 'Machine', and the daily reality of decision-making practices by relevant social actors. In this article, we explore the contrasting temporalities of automated data processing and predictive analytics, using policing as an illustrative example. Drawing on insights from two cases of predictive policing systems that have been implemented among UK police forces, we highlight the prevalence of counter-temporalities as predictive analytics is situated in institutional contexts and consider the conditions of possibility for agency and deliberation. Analysing these temporal tensions in relation to 'slowness' as a mode of resistance, the contextual examination of predictive policing advanced in the article provides a contribution to the formation of a deeper awareness of the politics of time in automated data processing; one that may serve to counter the imperative of pre-emption that, taken to the limit, seeks to foreclose the time for politics, action and life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are at a pivotal moment for understanding and deciding what is actually at stake with datafication. In this contribution, I argue for the increasingly important and politicized role of media scholarship to privilege lived experiences and situated practices as a counter to the active neutralization of data-driven systems and their implications. In particular, I argue for the relevance of media studies to emphasize the uses to which technology is put and explore how data practices relate to other social practices and historical contexts as a way to broaden the parameters of response, moving data politics beyond the confines of the technology itself, and contending instead with the premise and terms of the debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses three distinct child welfare data systems in England. We focus on child welfare as a contested area in public services where data systems are being used to inform decision-making and transforming governance. We advance the use of "data assemblage" as an analytical framework to detail how key political and economic factors influence the development of these data systems. We provide an empirically grounded demonstration of why child welfare data systems must not be considered neutral decision aid tools. We identify how systems of thought, ownership structures, policy agendas, organizational practices, and legal frameworks influence these data systems. We find similarities in the move toward greater sharing of sensitive data, but differences in attitudes toward public-private partnerships, rights and uses of prediction. There is a worrying lack of information available about the impacts of these systems on those who are subject to them – particularly in relation to predictive data systems. We argue for policy debates to go beyond technical fixes and privacy concerns to engage with fundamental questions about the power dynamics and rights issues linked to the expansion of data sharing in this sector as well as whether predictive data systems should be used at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital media enable processes of datafication: users' online activities leave digital traces that are transformed into data points in databases, kept by service providers and other private and public organisations, and repurposed for commercial exploitation, business innovation, surveillance -- and research. Increasingly, this also extends to sensors and recognition technologies that turn homes and cities, as well as our own bodies, into data points to be collected and analysed So-called 'traditional' media industries, too, including public service broadcasting, have been datafied, tracking and profiling audiences, algorithmically processing data for greater personalisation as a way to compete with new players and streaming services. Datafication both raises new research questions and brings about new avenues, and an array of tools, for empirical research. This special issue is dedicated to exploring these, linking them to broader historical trajectories of social science methodologies as well as to central concerns and perspectives in media and communication research. As such, this special issue grapples with approaches to empirical research that interlink questions of methods and tools with epistemology and practice. It discusses the datafication of methods, as well as methods for studying datafication. With this we hope to enable reflection of what research questions media and communication scholars should ask of datafication, and how new and existing methods enable us to answer them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including big data, social justice and human rights.

Social media and big data uses form part of a broader shift from ‘reactive’ to ‘proactive’ forms of governance in which state bodies engage in analysis to predict, pre-empt and respond in real time to a range of social problems. Drawing on research with British police, we contextualize these algorithmic processes within actual police practices, focusing on protest policing. Although aspects of algorithmic decision-making have become prominent in police practice, our research shows that they are embedded within a continuous human–computer negotiation that incorporates a rooted claim to ‘professional judgement’, an integrated intelligence context and a significant level of discretion. This context, we argue, transforms conceptions of threats. We focus particularly on three challenges: the inclusion of pre-existing biases and agendas, the prominence of marketing-driven software, and the interpretation of unpredictability. Such a contextualized analysis of data uses provides important insights for the shifting terrain of possibilities for dissent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the diverse factors shaping the involvement of non-governmental organisation (NGO) with humanitarian photography, paying particular attention to co-operative relationships with photojournalists intended to facilitate the generation of visual coverage of crises otherwise marginalised, or ignored altogether, in mainstream news media. The analysis is primarily based on a case study drawing upon 26 semi-structured interviews with NGO personnel (International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, Oxfam and Save the Children) and photojournalists conducted over 2014-2016, securing original insights into the epistemic terms upon which NGOs have sought to produce, frame and distribute imagery from recurrently disregarded crisis zones. In this way, the article pinpoints how the uses of digital imagery being negotiated by NGOs elucidate the changing, stratified geopolitics of visibility demarcating the visual boundaries of newsworthiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital citizenship is typically defined as the (self-)enactment of people's role in society through the use of digital technologies. It therefore has empowering and democratizing characteristics. However, as shown by this Special Section, the context of datafication and ubiquitous data collection and processing complicates this picture. The Snowden revelations have demonstrated the extent to which both state agencies and Internet companies monitor the activities of digital citizens and how the balance of power shifts accordingly. This editorial introduction outlines the challenges and transformations of digital citizenship after Snowden and formulates a set of requirements for digital citizenship in a datafied environment. Having set this thematic framework, it explains the purpose of the Special Section and outlines its contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Snowden leaks provided unprecedented insights into the workings of statecorporate surveillance programs based on the interception and collection of online activity. They illustrated the extent of "bulk" data collection and the general and widespread monitoring of everyday communication platforms used by ordinary citizens. Yet public response in the United Kingdom and elsewhere has been considerably muted, and there has been little evidence of public outcry, with often conflicting and inconsistent opinions on the subject. Based on research carried out for the project Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society, this article explores the nuances of public attitudes toward surveillance, including such attitudes among politically active citizens, through focus groups and interviews. We argue that the lack of transparency, knowledge, and control over what happens to personal data online has led to feelings of widespread resignation, not consent, to the status quo that speaks to a condition we identify as "surveillance realism." We understand this to entail a simultaneous unease among citizens with data collection alongside the active normalization of surveillance that limits the possibilities of enacting modes of citizenship and of imagining alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Future of Journalism conference with the theme "Risks, Threats and Opportunities" held in Cardiff, Wales from September 10-12, 2015. Topics discussed highlights of the conference which include key risks, threats and opportunities; keynote speeches delivered by guest speakers Dan Gillmor, Stephen Reese and Jean Seaton; and the role of journalism in democracies.

This article examines the rise of the Internet-based opposition group, One Million for the Freedom of the Press in Hungary (or Milla for short), and considers its impact as a form of digital activism in Hungarian political culture. Milla was founded in December 2010 as a Facebook group in response to the newly elected Fidesz government and its fundamental revision of the Hungarian constitution and, in particular, its media laws. Milla is a civil society group, based in Budapest, who saw the Fidesz government as a threat to the democratic freedoms set out in the post-communist settlement in Hungary. It emerged at a time when the mainstream Hungarian opposition parties were in disarray, and it took on the role of challenging the legitimacy of Fidesz actions. Milla is an important example of the idea of digital activism and virtual solidarity, and its experiences serve to illustrate many of the strengths and weaknesses of these notions. The article sets out the ways in which Milla has sought to generate support for itself and opposition to the government, how it has organized its activities and ultimately the specific problems that it faces in Hungarian civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crucial to contemporary debates on political space is a common understanding of changing conditions, not least brought on by developments in communication and media, especially with regards to online activity, that are leading to a spatial ‘shift’ upwards to the global. This article seeks to contribute to the debate on new media technologies and political space by exploring the way in which space comes to matter in the context of alternative user-generated news sites. Drawing especially on the case of OhmyNews International and the difficulties this site has had with moving from a domestic space to a global space of activity, this article makes the case for a much more comprehensive integration of research into online practices into the often parallel debate on the globalization of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article provides a critical assessment of the popular notion that we are moving towards an increasingly global understanding of political community and citizenship. At the centre of this debate is a specific, although often implicit, account of media developments. Drawing on original research done on the global news network, BBC World News, this article makes the case that news practices are developing in a far more complex and contradictory way than is often implied in discourses on the global ‘turn’ in politics. Globality as understood and represented at BBC World News is a question of not only certain culturally and institutionally informed assumptions about what constitutes public interest, but also, increasingly, a question of resources and dominant political rhetoric from a few institutions of power. What is more, developments in news practices do not necessarily lead to new and challenging communicative contexts in our understanding of the world, but rather may entrench and reinforce existing power relations. These empirically informed assessments of media developments need to form a much bigger part of discussions on the ‘global shift’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author comments on research by Molldrem and Smith on HIV data justice as a way to advance a bioethics of the oppressed. It cites issues of concern such as consent, privacy and the possibility of refusal, as well as the lack of shared understanding of how data should be used and interpreted. The relevance of understanding of data infrastructure in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic is discussed.

This article provides an overview of the collection and uses of data in relation to European border regimes. We analyse the significance of these developments for the governance of refugee populations and make the case that within the current policy context of European border control, data functions to systematically stigmatize, exclude and oppress 'unwanted' migrant populations through mechanisms of criminalisation, identification, and social sorting. This, we argue, highlights the need to engage with data politics in a way that considers both the politics in data as well as the politics of data, highlighting the agendas and interests that advance the implementation of these technologies, privileging justice concerns on terms that go beyond techno-legal solutions, and positioning those who are most impacted by developments at the forefront of discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]