Deconstructing datafication's brave new world

As World Economic Forum’s definition of personal data as ‘the new “oil” – a valuable resource of the 21st century’ (2011: 5) shows, large-scale data processing is increasingly considered the defining feature of contemporary economy and society. Commercial and governmental discourse on data frequently argues its benefits, and so legitimates its continuous and large-scale extraction and processing as the starting-point for developments in specific industries, and potentially as the basis for societies as a whole. Against the background of the GDPR, this article unravels how general discourse on data covers over the social practices enabling collection of data, through the analysis of highprofile business reports and case studies of health and education sectors. We show how conceptualisation of data as having a natural basis in the everyday world protects data collection from ethical questioning while endorsing the use and free flow of data within corporate control, at the expense of its potentially negative impacts on personal autonomy and human freedom

Relações Públicas e Comunicação orientadas aos dados: realidade ou necessidade contemporânea?

Organizational Communication and Public Relations activities are impacted by digital technologies so that the pile of data that is generated instantly needs treatment, understanding, direction and purpose. The article is dedicated to understanding how data is influencing, guiding, and impacting communication processes, through the dynamics of interaction, prediction, and personalization. Initially, the methodology used is the bibliographic research added with examples and real cases, selected by intentional, non-probabilistic sampling, with the purpose of illustrating the theory discussed.As atividades de Comunicação Organizacional e Relações Públicas encontram-se impactadas pelas tecnologias digitais, de modo que o amontoado de dados que são gerados instantaneamente precisa de tratamento, entendimento, direcionamento e finalidade. O artigo se dedica a entender como os dados estão influenciando, orientando e impactando os processos comunicacionais, por meio das dinâmicas de interação, predição e personalização. Inicialmente, a metodologia utilizada é a da pesquisa bibliográfica adicionada de exemplos e casos reais, selecionados por amostragem intencional, não probabilística, com fins de ilustração da teoria discutida