BIG DATA CRITIQUE

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers New Media & Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Overview

1. Whither Big Data? (Wohin?)

2. Recent shift in Big Data from hype to disillusionment

3. Five Big Data Critiques

4. After Critique: Enriching Big Data

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Google Flu Trends: Predictive algorithms in action

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Google Flu Trends: High-profile case of the unfulfilled promise of Big Data

Google&Flu&

Trends&vastly&

overes2mates&

rate&of&influenza&

in&2012&and&

2013&in&the&USA&

Is&Big&Data&measuring&societal&

trends&or&media&effects?&

Sources:&D.&Butler,&Nature,&494,&2013;&D.&Lazer&et&al.,&Science,&343,&2014.&

Big Data – a recent dip in hype and first indication of disappointment

July  2013  * *July  2014

“Big  Data”

Source:&Gartner,&

Hype&Cycles,&2014&

BIG DATA CRITIQUE FIVE POINTS

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Big Data Critique – 5 points

1. Reputational shift to large-scale infrastructures and their analysts (Big Data handlers)

•  Big Data and Big Analytics are preferred modes of analysis and are awarded funding and contracts over other modes.

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Big Data Critique – 5 points

2. Paradigm shift from interpretation (hermeneutics) to pattern-recognition, or from ‘close reading’ to ‘distant reading’

•  Big Data focuses on overall trends and anomalies - the obvious and the obscure.

Big Data Critique – 5 points

Twitter co-hashtag analysis of Dutch federal civil service use, 2012-2013. Visualization by Gephi (Borra and Rogers, 2013)

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Big Data Critique – 5 points

3. Analytical shift in commitments and literacies to who can ‘read’ and grasp the visualisations

•  Big Data readings can prompt apophenia: seeing patterns where there are none. (boyd and Crawford, Info Comm Soc, 15, 2012.)

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Big Data Critique – 5 points

4. Organisational shift to relying on one small team of data scientists (with special data access privileges). (See Tiropanis, Hall et al. Big Dat, 2, 2014)

•  “Thick data” specialists are no longer providing the insights.

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

Big Data Critique – 5 points

5. Shift to relying on (available) signals rather than seeking out (unavailable) ones.

•  Relying on more and more (available) signals does mean that there is good societal ‘coverage’. There are data-rich and data-poor (Crawford, Harvard Bus Rev, 2013)

Big Data – a recent dip in hype and first indication of disappointment

Source:&Gartner,&

Hype&Cycles,&2014&

July  2013  * *July  2014

July  2015?  *

“Big  Data”

Next steps: Incorporating Broad Data, All Data, Thick Data and Small Data

into Big Data

THANK YOU

Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers Author of Digital Methods (MIT Press, 2013)