The Media Manifesto by Natalie Fenton & Des Freedman & Justin Schlosberg & Lina Dencik

Author:Natalie Fenton & Des Freedman & Justin Schlosberg & Lina Dencik
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2021-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

Framing what is at stake

In positioning datafication in relation to its operative logics, we can move away from the notion that this is simply a technical development, one that concerns predominantly a quantitative shift: more information shared faster. Equally, we can begin to peel away at the prevalent trend of establishing the issue within the parameters of data simply being used for ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Neither of these engage with the turn to data-centric technologies as a distinctly political and economic development, nor do they attend to the epistemological and ontological assertions that come with understanding the social world as one that can be datafied. Rather, they advance a myth of data as a neutral technical artefact, abstract from context, upholding scientific objectivity unpolluted by human intervention and free from the convoluted space of narrative and representation, and indeed interests. As Andrejevic (2019) describes it, the imperative is to achieve ‘framelessness’, a medium where, with ubiquitous recording, data can speak for itself. 17 Data, on this reading, is the undeniable truth and the digital networks that fortify its accumulative logic, appear as deinstitutionalized, apolitical spaces making claims to what we naturally do collectively. 18

Pushing back on these limited characterizations of datafication has become especially pertinent in recent years and presents itself as a primary task for researchers, practitioners and activists working in the realm of data politics. As mass data collection has come to embed itself in how media, the economy and the social are organized, the societal implications of datafication are increasingly a pressing concern. Yet making claims to what is actually at stake with such developments is itself emerging as a key site of struggle over justice. Although the Snowden leaks predominantly confirmed established arguments from several internet scholars about developments, the publication of the surveillance programmes provides a historical juncture in public debate about the nature of our digital media environments. 19 In part, it shed light on the challenges of holding the congruence of state and Silicon Valley interests to account, not least as the Guardian was largely vilified by the rest of the press for publishing the leaks in the first place. A concerted effort was made to present mass surveillance as an effective counter-terrorism measure, a questioning of which would jeopardize (state) security and undermine efforts to deal with social deviants. In this way, a narrative was advanced that digital surveillance is a concern only for those who have something to hide, largely justified on grounds of the limitless threats that prevail over contemporary society.

However, despite efforts to justify and rationalize the monitoring of online activity on such a massive scale, a sense of unease and worry has been a prevalent aspect of public attitudes towards digital technologies in recent years. This was only heightened when the story broke on the use of Facebook data by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for the purposes of political campaigning in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential elections and the British referendum on membership of the EU.

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