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Daily Archives: January 6, 2019

Playing with data and its consequences

First Monday – Volume 24, Number 1 – 7 January 2019 > Gutiérrez. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i1.9554

“The fundamental paradigm shift brought about by datafication alters how people participate as citizens on a daily basis. “Big data” has come to constitute a new terrain of engagement, which brings organized collective action, communicative practices and data infrastructure into a fruitful dialogue. While scholarship is progressively acknowledging the emergence of bottom-up data practices, to date no research has explored the influence of these practices on the activists themselves. Leveraging the disciplines of critical data and social movement studies, this paper explores “proactive data activism”, using, producing and/or appropriating data for social change, and examines its biographical, political, tactical and epistemological consequences. Approaching engagement with data as practice, this study focuses on the social contexts in which data are produced, consumed and circulated, and analyzes how tactics, skills and emotions of individuals evolve in interplay with data. Through content and co-occurrence analysis of semi-structured practitioner interviews (N=20), the article shows how the employment of data and data infrastructure in activism fundamentally transforms the way activists go about changing the world.”

Paper – Agile Research

First Monday – Volume 24, Number 1 – 7 January 2019 > Twidale. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i1.9424 “In this paper we ask: “how might we take the ideas, the methods and the underlying philosophy behind agile software development and explore applying them in the context of doing research — even research that does not involve software development?” We… Continue Reading

7 Free Web Annotation and Markup Tools You Should Know

Hongkiat: “Contextual feedback is crucial for remote teams working online to have fast and efficient feedback system. Asking and taking feedback is tedious and usually happens off-context using email and text message. There are some tools, however, that allow teams to discuss things and collaborate online in much better way. Web Annotation and Markup tools… Continue Reading

The Federalist Society’s impact on the law

Washington Post Magazine: “The conservative and libertarian society for law and public policy studies has reached an unprecedented peak of power and influence. Brett Kavanaugh, whose membership in the society dates to his Yale Law School days, has just been elevated to the Supreme Court; he is the second of President Trump’s appointees, following Neil… Continue Reading

Censoring China’s Internet, for Stability and Profit

The New York Times – Thousands of low-wage workers in “censorship factories” trawl the online world for forbidden content, where even a photo of an empty chair could cause big trouble. “…China has built the world’s most extensive and sophisticated online censorship system. It grew even stronger under President Xi Jinping, who wants the internet… Continue Reading

Google, Facebook, and the Legal Mess Over Face Scanning

“Confusion over biometric privacy laws in the U.S. is leading to different outcomes for tech giants embroiled in legal disputes over facial scanning. An Illinois court recently ruled that Google did not flout local laws by using facial-scanning to help people organize photo galleries through its Photos service. Facebook, on the other hand, is appealing… Continue Reading

A Guide To Who’s Who In House Leadership For The 116th Congress

NPR: “The 116th Congress officially convened on Thursday with Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. And with Democrats’ newfound power and Republicans’ first time in the minority in nearly a decade, both parties saw a shuffle in their leadership teams. The Democratic leadership is a diverse… Continue Reading

Devices That Will Invade Your Life in 2019 (and What’s Overhyped)

The New York Times – A.I. that responds to your voice. Next-generation wireless networks. If this year’s biggest consumer technology trends have a familiar ring, there’s a reason for that. “But as is often the case, there will also be plenty of talk in the coming week about overly optimistic tech that you would do… Continue Reading

The BitCurator Consortium

“The BitCurator Consortium (BCC) is an independent, community-led membership association that serves as the host and center of administrative, user and community support for the BitCurator environment. Its purpose is to support curation of born-digital materials through the application of open-source digital forensics tools by institutions responsible for such materials.Governance decisions are driven by the… Continue Reading

Plants of the World Online portal

“In 2015, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew launched its first Science Strategy establishing its vision to document and understand global plant and fungal diversity and their uses, bringing authoritative expertise to bear on the critical challenges facing humanity today. The Science Strategy also committed Kew to delivering nine strategic outputs with the overarching aim to… Continue Reading