The era of “Big Data” has begun. Computer scientists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, political scientists, bio-informaticists, sociologists, and many others are clamoring for access to the massive quantities of information produced by and about people, things, and their interactions. Diverse groups argue about the potential benefits and costs of analyzing information from Twitter, Google, Verizon, 23andMe, Facebook, Wikipedia, and every space where large groups of people leave digital traces and deposit data. Significant questions emerge. Will large-scale analysis of DNA help cure diseases? Or will it usher in a new wave of medical inequality? Will data analytics help make people’s access to information more efficient and effective? Or will it be used to track protesters in the streets of major cities? Will it transform how we study human communication and culture, or narrow the palette of research options and alter what ‘research’ means? Some or all of the above?
Kate Crawford and I decided to sit down and interrogate some of the assumptions and biases embedded into the rhetoric surrounding “Big Data.” The resulting piece – “Six Provocations for Big Data” – offers a multi-discplinary social analysis of the phenomenon with the goal of sparking a conversation. This paper is intended to be presented as a keynote address at the Oxford Internet Institute’s 10th Anniversary “A Decade in Internet Time” Symposium.
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