Big data from below. Researching data assemblages

This paper aims to study the data assemblage of three centres of calculation which produce and use big data for social research. By unfolding how big data are produced we want to compare and contrast different aspects of data construction, management and exploitation. The results are drawn from focus groups and in-depth interviews of data experts. Respondents were interviewed about the activities of setting objectives, design decisions and choices with respect to expert languages, influences, constraints, debates with actors internal and external to data assemblage. The analysis presented in the paper focuses on the methodological activities run in the assemblage, and on subjectivities and communities involved in big data

Subjective Well-Being and Future Orientation of NEETs: Evidence from the Italian Sample of the European Social Survey

The acronym ‘NEET’ includes adolescents and young people aged 15–34 years not engaged in education, employment or training programs. According to recent studies, NEET represents a high‐risk category to suffer from lower well‐being and mental health problems. Following a life course approach, this study examined the self‐reported subjective well‐being and the future orientation of NEETs. To do this, the study used the latest European Social Survey data (Round 9—2018), limiting our analysis to Italian respondents aged 15–34 years. The final sample included 695 participants. Descriptive analysis and Student’s t‐test were performed to compare the subjective well‐being and the future orientation of NEETs with those of non‐NEET young adults. We hypothesize lower subjective well‐beings in the NEET group and more difficulties in future planning than in the non‐NEET group. Then, a mediation path model was carried out to study the relationship between employment condition (non‐NEET/NEET) and subjective well‐being through future orientation. The path model showed the mediator role of future orientation. Results indicated that future orientation plays a role in mitigating the effect of the unemployment condition on wellbeing. Starting from these findings, practical implications regarding career guidance interventions are discussed

Young in University-Work Transition: The Views of Undergraduates in Southern Italy

In the last few years, economic and social changes have made the path from university to work long and twisted, in particular in Southern Italy, an area with the highest rate of unemployment. This contribution aims to exploring the experiences of university-work transition of undergraduates. Using an open-ended interview, the authors obtained narrative data from 150 undergraduates from Southern Italy. Textual Analysis and Text Network Analysis were carried out to identify the thematic clusters and obtain the network pattern of lemmas in order to understand process of meaning construction of students. The analysis shows four clusters: “Awareness of one’s own image in the past,” “Change perception,” “Experimentation and planning of objectives,” “Prospects towards work.” In the uncertainty of contemporary society where each individual is called upon to build one’s own working career, university may represent for students a protective factor allowing them to define and re-define themselves in view of the acquisition of future roles and the preparation for the world of work

Forme, significati e valori della partecipazione politica giovanile nell'Empolese Valdelsa

The relationship of the young people with the politics has changed in the postmodern society. The most recent surveys shows that the young prefer individualistic kinds of participation and participate mostly in cultural and social associations. This article aims to analyze the participation of the young members of the “Arci” club in “Empolese Valdelsa” in Tuscany, an area with a long political tradition. In particular, the research attempts to identify the transformation of the values belonging to local political subculture that it has oriented the political life of the people over the years

The Politics of Big Data Assemblages

One way to study the politics of big data is the inspection of their assemblages. By opening up the “black boxes” of data assemblages, it is possible to reconstruct the choices, compromises, conflicts and agree- ments that contributed to the construction of a given datum. Leaning on in-depth interviews and focus groups with experts and specialists who work within three European data centers, we unveil the interde- pendence between social and technical aspects and between a series of internal and external actors, which all contribute to the data assemblage. Results show that communities of experts, technologies, stakeholders and end-users are entwined components that interact amongst them in a contingent and complex web of negotiations and constraints and frame what is possible, desirable and expected by data

Mixture of Topic Modeling and Network Analysis. The case-study of climate change on Twitter

The paper proposes a semi-automatic labeling of topics extracted with a Topic Model using the tools of Social Network Analysis. The aim is to attach a label to every topic studying the terms-topics network structure. This method performs a semi-automatic topics labelling by using Latent Dirichlet Allocation model, integrating the network approach with topic generative model. LDA allows to extract latent topics and Social Network Analysis' tools permit to delineate the neighborhood of each topic, fostering a stronger interpretation of the meanings of the topics through the analysis of the extracted topics and documents' terms. To better show the joint use of Topic Model and Network Analysis, we present a case-study of how young people feel the climate change through the messages of user @Fridays4future extracted by International Fridays For Future Twitter account

Epistemic Orientation for the Technological Future. Toward a Research Agenda for Dealing with Social Challenges of Internet of Things

This paper offers an epistemological and theoretical framework, and a research agenda, to face the main ethical and social pitfalls of the deployment of big data and IoT in social domains (SIoT). We rely on the concept of critical optimism to explain epistemic orientation about the technological future, paying particular attention to the social challenges. The framework drives the creation of an agenda for social researchers that aids to detect more evidence on the SIoT opportunities

The Politics of Big Data Assemblages

One way to study the politics of big data is the inspection of their assemblages. By opening up the “black boxes” of data assemblages, it is possible to reconstruct the choices, compromises, conflicts and agree-ments that contributed to the construction of a given datum. Leaning on in-depth interviews and focus groups with experts and specialists who work within three European data centers, we unveil the interde-pendence between social and technical aspects and between a series of internal and external actors, which all contribute to the data assemblage. Results show that communities of experts, technologies, stakeholders and end-users are entwined components that interact amongst them in a contingent and complex web of negotiations and constraints and frame what is possible, desirable and expected by data

Interconnessioni tra parole, dimensioni e forme espresse di religiosità

A partire dalle interviste condotte nell'ambito della ricerca nazionale Religiosità in Italia, il capitolo intende approfondire i modi di rapportarsi alla sfera religiosa e i significati ad essa attribuiti. Il materiale testuale è stato analizzato attraverso il ricorso all’apparato teorico e metodologico della Social Network Analysis che ha permesso di cogliere il modo in cui le parole sono connesse tra loro all’interno delle interviste, identificando così le zone di vicinato semantico e quelle parole che occupano una posizione di rilevanza concettuale in differenti gruppi o nell’intero network

I giovani dei Circoli Arci dell’Empolese Valdelsa: forme, significati e valori della partecipazione politica

The relationship of the young people with the politics has changed in the postmodern society. The most recent surveys shows that the young prefer individualistic kinds of participation and participate mostly in cultural and social associations. This article aims to analyze the participation of the young members of the “Arci” club in “Empolese Valdelsa” in Tuscany, an area with a long political tradition. In particular, the research attempts to identify the transformation of the values belonging to local political subculture that it has oriented the political life of the people over the years