Big Data: Issues for an International Political Sociology of Data Practices

The claim that big data can revolutionize strategy and governance in the context of international relations is increasingly hard to ignore. Scholars of international political sociology have mainly discussed this development through the themes of security and surveillance. The aim of this paper is to outline a research agenda that can be used to raise a broader set of sociological and practice-oriented questions about the increasing datafication of international relations and politics. First, it proposes a way of conceptualizing big data that is broad enough to open fruitful investigations into the emerging use of big data in these contexts. This conceptualization includes the identification of three moments contained in any big data practice. Secondly, it suggests a research agenda built around a set of sub-themes that each deserve dedicated scrutiny when studying the interplay between big data and international relations along these moments. Through a combination of these moments and sub-themes, the paper suggests a roadmap for an international political sociology of the datafication of worlds

Approaching public perceptions of datafication through the lens of inequality: a case study in public service media

In the emerging field of critical data studies, there is increasing acknowledgement that the negative effects of datafication are not experienced equally by all. Research on data and discrimination in particular has highlighted how already socially unequal populations are discriminated against in data-driven systems. Elsewhere, there is growing interest in public perceptions of datafication, amongst academic researchers interested in producing ‘bottom up’ understandings of the new roles of data in society and non-academic stakeholders keen to establish positive perceptions of data-driven systems. However, research into public perceptions rarely engages with the issue of inequality which is so central in data and discrimination scholarship. Bringing these two issues together, this paper explores public perceptions of datafication through the lens of inequality, focusing on the relationship between understandings and feelings within these perceptions. The paper draws on empirical focus group research into how audiences perceive the data practices that signing in to access BBC digital services enable. The paper shows how inequalities relating to age, dis/ability, poverty and their intersections played a role in shaping perceptions and that these social inequalities informed understandings of and feelings about data practices in complex and diverse ways. It concludes with reflections on the significance of these findings for future research and for data-related policy

Out of the Panopticon and into Exile:Visibility and Control in Distributed New Culture Organizations

This paper builds a theoretical argument for exile as an alternative metaphor to the panopticon, for conceptualizing visibility and control in the context of distributed “new culture” organizations. Such organizations emphasize team relationships between employees who use digital technologies to stay connected with each other and the organization. I propose that in this context, a fear of exile – that is a fear of being left out, overlooked, ignored or banished – can act as a regulating force that inverts the radial spatial dynamic of the panopticon and shifts the responsibility for visibility, understood both in terms of competitive exposure and existential recognition, onto workers. As a consequence these workers enlist digital technologies to become visible at the real or imagined organizational centre. A conceptual appreciation of exile, as discussed in existential philosophy and postcolonial theory, is shown to offer productive grounds for future research on how a need for visibility in distributed, digitised, and increasingly precarious work environments regulates employee subjectivity, in a manner that is not captured under traditional theories of ICT-enabled surveillance in organizations

Truth after post-truth: for a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies

Contemporary post-truth discourses put the constructivist foundations of Discourse Studies to a test. According to critical observers, discourse analysts have been playing into the hands of Trump, Brexit and right-wing populists by politicising scientific knowledge and undermining the idea of scientific truth. In order to respond to these concerns, this article outlines a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies. While the Strong Programme insists on truths as discursive constructions, in no way does it claim that all ideas have the same truth value or that an idea can become true because somebody wants it to be true. The Strong Programme makes the case for discourse research that is constructivist (it asks how truths are constructed practically) without being relativist (all ideas do not have the same normative quality). Taking inspiration from debates in Science and Technology Studies of the 1970s, the Strong Programme formulates principles for discourse researchers dealing with conflicting truth claims. Discourse analytical explanations of truths of first-order participants and of second-order observers should be symmetrical, heterogeneous, multi-perspectival and reflexive. The Strong Programme discourse research is grounded in the founding traditions of ?French? and ?Critical? Discourse Studies, which have struggled over questions of truth and reality since the beginning. While critically interrogating the structuralist heritage of these strands, the Strong Programme insists on the practices of making and unmaking ideas through language use no matter whether they appear as true or false to participants and observers. Discourse Studies are encouraged to critically reflect on how hierarchies between knowledges are not only represented but, through their representation, also constituted through discursive practices

The spectacle and organisation studies

The aim of this essay is to revisit Guy Debord’s critical theory of the spectacle as formulated 50 years ago in the ‘Society of the Spectacle’ in light of the contemporary production of spectacles. Debord’s arguments about appearance, visibility and celebrity are echoed in the way organizations increasingly focus on their brand, image, impression, and reputation. Yet, the role of spectacles in organizational life has remained under-researched in organization studies. As the boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and representation, substance and appearance become increasingly blurred, questions about the production and effects of spectacles seem more pertinent than ever. Are representations faithful mirrors of reality, or attempts to conceal reality? Do they replace reality, or bring new realities into being? By articulating three possible understandings of the spectacle, as fetishism, hyper-reality or performativity, this essay invites organization scholars to examine the organization of the real and the making of organizations through processes of spectacular representation including discursive practices, visual images and theatrical performances