Empowerment by design: Configuring the agency of citizens and activists in digital infrastructure

Jo Pierson, Stefania Milan

Research output: Unpublished contribution to conferenceUnpublished abstract

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Abstract

Digital infrastructures like social media and other online platforms are deeply embedded in everyday social life. What’s more, they are a central tenet to the contemporary public debate. This evolution is accompanied by the gathering, processing, (re)using and monetising of large amounts of (personal) data, which is commonly referred to as “datafication”. Besides concerns of ubiquitous surveillance and “algorithmic power”, there is a need to investigate agency and reflexivity regarding (big) data use by individual or collective actors (Couldry & Powell, 2014). This paper explores the socio-technical conditions for bottom-up data practices by citizens and the organized civil society, in order to construct and enact power and participation in diverse ways. Our main question is how to design and support digital infrastructure that enable and promote the use of data and publicly available information for good (or “proactive data activism”). Proactive data activism refers to activism that takes advantage of the possibilities for advocacy and campaigning that big data offer, and use and appropriate data to foster social change (Milan and Gutierrez, 2015). However, the lack of transparency and control over commodified data in the “platform society” (van Dijck, Poell & de Waal, 2016) seriously undermines the potential for user empowerment (Pierson, 2012). We therefore introduce the notion of “empowerment by design”, which refers to building infrastructures and systems (like Internet-of-Things, participatory sensing platforms, open data systems, government databases etc.) in such a way that citizens and activists have agency to safeguard and strengthen public values in society. The theoretical framework is based on integrating insights from critical media theory with Science and Technology Studies and the sociology of social movements. For investigating these issues we combine empirical findings of work in progress in a four-year project in Belgium on citizen observatories (FLAMENCO: http://citizen-observatory.be) and a five-year European ERC project on data activism (DATACTIVE: https://data-activism.net). The FLAMENCO project aims to develop a platform that supports the creation and implementation of citizen observatories for collecting, analysing and visualising participatory sensor data. The design of the platform should enable and stimulate citizens to easily set up data generating campaigns for engaging in sustainable mobility and environmental monitoring. We present first results of how to “encode” citizen empowerment in the platform to be developed, based on scenario-based design approach. The (individual) citizen perspective is complemented with the perspective of civil society organisations as well as individuals interviewed within the DATACTIVE project. More specifically, we look at how activists make sense of the ways in which the data of digital infrastructures (digital traces) structure their interactions, and how they exploit these for mobilization and political agency. These insights help to identify guidelines and features for building agency-producing digital infrastructures furthering social movement goals. The paper offers an innovative socio-technical perspective on how to (re)design digital infrastructures generating (bottom-up) data and digital traces, in order to enhance the agency of citizens and activists. It contributes also crucial insights on “how to infrastructure” (Star & Bowker, 2006) in order to give voice and strengthen public values. REFERENCES Couldry, Nick & Powell, Alison (2014) 'Big Data from the bottom up', in Big Data & Society, 1(2), 1-5. Milan, Stefania and Miren Gutierrez (2015). ‘Citizens’ Media Meets Big Data: The Emergence of Data Activism’, Mediaciones, 14, 120-133. Pierson, Jo (2012) 'Online privacy in social media: a conceptual exploration of empowerment and vulnerability', in Communications & Strategies (Digiworld Economic Journal), 4thQ (88), 99-120. Star, Susan Leigh & Bowker, Geoffrey C. (2006) 'How to infrastructure', in L. A. Lievrouw & S. Livingstone (Eds.) The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences of ICTs (Updated Student Edition). London: SAGE, 230-245. van Dijck, José, Poell, Thomas & de Waal, Martijn (2016) De platformsamenleving: strijd om publieke waarden in een online wereld. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 180.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 17 Jul 2017
EventIAMCR - Cartagena, Colombia
Duration: 16 Jul 201720 Jul 2017

Conference

ConferenceIAMCR
Country/TerritoryColombia
CityCartagena
Period16/07/1720/07/17

Bibliographical note

Presentation at Communication Policy & Technology section for IAMCR Conference ‘Transforming Culture, Politics & Communication: New media, new territories, new discourses’

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