Public Data Cultures

Jonathan W. Y. Gray

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781509571390, 9781509571383
• eBook ISBN: 9781509571406
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Political Process
• Index: Social Sciences

Public data shapes what we know and how we live together. It is often digital, freely available and related to matters of shared concern, from global warming graphs to collaborative spreadsheets documenting mass layoffs.

Public Data Cultures explores the practices and cultures of how data is made public in the age of the Internet. Looking beyond familiar narratives of data as a resource to be liberated or protected, this book offers new perspectives on public data as networked cultural material, as medium of participation and as site of transnational politics. To better account for how data makes a difference, the book argues for a more expansive conception of what is involved in making data public. It focuses not just on removing restrictions but also on caring for arrangements involved in making data public in ways that grow shared understanding and solidarity in responding to the many intersecting troubles of our times.

Nurturing critical and creative engagements with data, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of media, science and technology studies and digital humanities, as well as artists, designers, journalists and activists working with data.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• I. RECONSIDERING DATA
• 1. Data as cultural material
• 2. Data as medium of participation
• 3. Data as transnational coordination
• II. CRITICALLY ENGAGING DATA
• 4. Missing data and making data
• 5. Critical data practices
• Conclusion
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement