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This chapter develops an argument against the soft determinism implied in the way publics are said to be affected by data and algorithmic power. To do so, we introduce a sociocultural approach, focusing on media consumption as a distinct moment from media production, the actual locus of algorithmic power. The chapter argues that we need to distinguish between our ‘uses of media’ – what is essentially captured as data and turned into (limited) knowledge – and our sociocultural practices – which remain to date largely invisible and incomprehensible to the data episteme. The gap between uses and practices provides a reflexive space of agency for users to escape algorithmic power, which are conceptualized in relation to two moments in the data loop (Mathieu and Pruulmann Vengerfeldt, 2020) as inspective agency and inscriptive agency.
This concluding chapter takes stock of the contributions made by this volume, in which we developed the concept of datapublics to understand the transformations that have affected the fields of journalism and media. We suggest seeing the construction of publics as hybrid – not directly connected to any specific media space or enabled by any specific technology – as a struggle between different normative ideals embodied in publics, and as a process involving different modalities of publicness and datafication. Publicness (attention, visibility, legitimacy, hierarchization and valorization) and datafication (as a process, a discourse and a value-system) become physical, virtual and imagined spaces in which struggles for the construction of datapublics take place, struggles that affect not only how datapublics come into being in datafied societies, but with all actors involved in their formation.
This chapter introduces the framework of the book and discusses its central concepts: datafication and publics. The chapter lays out the conjunctures of a technological drama, with a rise and fall narrative regarding processes of public formation in datafied societies. The drama stages three characters: a victim, in the form of the passive, defenceless public; a villain, Big Tech; and a hero, journalism. The chapter argues that the drama needs to be challenged by theoretical and empirical research. We suggest the notion of datapublics as a lens to investigate how publics are constructed at the junction of journalistic media, technological infrastructures and agentic citizens.
The book addresses new challenges to the formation of publics in datafied democracies. It proposes a fresh, complex and nuanced approach to understand ‘datapublics’, by considering datafication and public formation in the context of audience, journalism and infrastructure studies.
The tightly woven chapters shed new light on how platforms, algorithms and their data infrastructure are interwoven with journalistic values, discourses and practices, opening up new conditions for publics to display agency, mobilize and achieve legitimacy. It does so across empirical sites such as anti-COVID-19 protest movements, newsrooms in media organizations, comment sections, Facebook groups and data science departments inside media organizations. Building on rich empirical analysis it shows how publics are constructed and negotiated in the intersection of audience agency, digital infrastructures and media cultivation. It conceptualizes publicness as modalities, emphasizing stratification, legitimization, visibility, attention and recognition, and illustrates how datafication as a value system and discourse has an impact on those modalities.
The book addresses new challenges to the formation of publics in datafied democracies. It proposes a fresh, complex and nuanced approach to understand ‘datapublics’, by considering datafication and public formation in the context of audience, journalism and infrastructure studies.
The tightly woven chapters shed new light on how platforms, algorithms and their data infrastructure are interwoven with journalistic values, discourses and practices, opening up new conditions for publics to display agency, mobilize and achieve legitimacy. It does so across empirical sites such as anti-COVID-19 protest movements, newsrooms in media organizations, comment sections, Facebook groups and data science departments inside media organizations. Building on rich empirical analysis it shows how publics are constructed and negotiated in the intersection of audience agency, digital infrastructures and media cultivation. It conceptualizes publicness as modalities, emphasizing stratification, legitimization, visibility, attention and recognition, and illustrates how datafication as a value system and discourse has an impact on those modalities.
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This book addresses new challenges to the formation of publics in datafied democracies. It proposes a fresh, complex and nuanced approach to understand ‘datapublics’, by considering datafication and public formation in the context of audience, journalism and infrastructure studies.
The tightly woven chapters shed new light on how platforms, algorithms and their data infrastructure are embedded in journalistic values, discourses and practices, opening up new conditions for publics to display agency, mobilise and achieve legitimacy.
This is a seminal contribution to the debates about the future of media, journalism and civic practices.
The book addresses new challenges to the formation of publics in datafied democracies. It proposes a fresh, complex and nuanced approach to understand ‘datapublics’, by considering datafication and public formation in the context of audience, journalism and infrastructure studies.
The tightly woven chapters shed new light on how platforms, algorithms and their data infrastructure are interwoven with journalistic values, discourses and practices, opening up new conditions for publics to display agency, mobilize and achieve legitimacy. It does so across empirical sites such as anti-COVID-19 protest movements, newsrooms in media organizations, comment sections, Facebook groups and data science departments inside media organizations. Building on rich empirical analysis it shows how publics are constructed and negotiated in the intersection of audience agency, digital infrastructures and media cultivation. It conceptualizes publicness as modalities, emphasizing stratification, legitimization, visibility, attention and recognition, and illustrates how datafication as a value system and discourse has an impact on those modalities.
