Week 6: Data and Media - An unrequited love?
In a world where data consumes us, describes us and perhaps even defines us, is data a friend or foe? Is there a conflict resolution needed between data, the media and us? These are all questions that this week's lecture and readings brought up.
The Web 2.0 has enabled us to upload content quicker and easier than ever before. Take for example Instagram, as just one of millions of applications that allow us to upload, store, share and download data with the world. In one respect this has brought the world closer, sharing experiences in real time quite literally from the palm of our hands to another. It is daunting to think that 'liking', 'commenting' and 'sharing' has become an everyday activity for the entire world, and this is just one example of data sharing that new media has allowed for. New media has revolutionised the world, enabling insurmountable amounts of data to be uploaded, stored and downloaded like never before. However, with this, issues are brought to the table. Essentially, we must ask ourselves, is data a help or a hindrance for us?
This week we also looked at the Actor Network Theory (ANT) to help conceptualise this topic. The ANT is a sociological theory that is used to describe objects as networks, linking concepts with material things. It simply means that in an assemblage (a coming together of sorts) both the "human" and "non-human" actants are equal and are mutually dependent, for example in relation to data, the assemblage may be Instagram news feed, and the "human" actants are us, while the "non-human" actants are the iPhone, the Web 2.0 and the camera. If we are to relate the ANT to our thinking about data and media this week, I would personally say that while data is perpetually imploding, that rather than bringing up a question of whether there is conflict between data, media and us, the larger issue at stake is in fact possibly how data and media is getting away from us: are we chasing media or are media chasing us?
One of this week's readings was titled '10 ways data is changing how we live' written by Conrad Quilty-Harper published in The Telegraph in 2010. I found it succinct and interesting, and very relevant to what we were discussing this week. The author listed and described 10 ways that data is changing our everyday lives, in the areas of shopping, relationships, business deliveries, maps, education, politics, society, war, advertising, linked data and the future. Considering these are highly significant aspects of our everyday lives, it is incredible to be reminded of just how much data and new media are changing the world around us, and I have to say if this article is anything to go by, data is changing the world for the better, making it a more transparent, smaller place to live in. Of particular interest in this article was the author's reference to how data is impacting on education, referencing the school assessment data which is now communicated publicly to rank schools, stating "Although there have been questions raised about the methodology behind the analysis, it's still a great example of how new and previously unseen data can add a different perspective on a subject that affects everyone's life" (Quilty-Harper, 2010).
So to personally answer this week's questions put forward to us in the lecture, I think data and media are a match made in heaven, creating a new assemblage at large and helping us as a collective society to move forward. I think the relationship between data and media are the way of the future, the way forward.
'Actor-network theory', Wikipedia, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor–network_theory [accessed April 24 2013]
Quilty-Harper, C., (2010) '10 Ways data is changing how we live', The Telegraph, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/7963311/10-ways-data-is-changing-how-we-live.html [accessed April 24 [2013]