Post, Mine, Repeat (eBook)

Helen Kennedy is Professor of Digital Society at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has researched and published widely across the field of digital media, from web homepages to data visualisations, from race, class, gender inequality to learning disability and web accessibility, from web design to social media data mining.

Acknowledgements 6
Contents 10
List of Figures 14
List of Tables 16
Chapter 1: Social Media Data Mining Becomes Ordinary 17
Data Abundance and Its Consequences 17
Researching Ordinary Social Media Data Mining 27
Chapter 2: Why Study Social Media Data Mining? 34
Introduction 34
Four Characteristics of Social Media: Participation, Sharing, Intimacy and Monetisation 36
What Is Social Media Data Mining? 44
Conclusion 53
Chapter 3: What Should Concern Us About Social Media Data Mining? Key Debates 55
Introduction 55
Critiques of (Social Media) Data Mining 58
Less Privacy, More Surveillance 58
Discrimination and Control 61
Methodological Concerns 63
Issues of Access and Inequality 66
Seeking Agency in Data Mining Structures 67
Worker Agency 70
User Agency 72
Techno-agency 74
Postscript on Agency: Acting Ethically in Times of Data Mining 76
Conclusion 78
Chapter 4: Public Sector Experiments with Social Media Data Mining 81
Introduction 81
Action Research and the Production of Publics 84
Knowing and Forming Publics 84
Action-Researching Public Uses of Social Media Data Mining 85
Social Media Data Mining for the Public Good? 90
Uses of Social Media Data Mining 90
Understanding Publics, Desiring Numbers 93
Constituting Publics 101
How Keywords Constitute Publics 101
How Expertise (Or Its Absence) Constitutes Publics 103
Working Around Data Non-abundance to Constitute Publics 105
Conclusion: What Should Concern Us About Public Sector Social Media Data Mining? 108
Chapter 5: Commercial Mediations of Social Media Data 112
Introduction 112
The Practices of Intermediary Insights Companies and the Concerns of Workers 117
Who Companies and Interviewees Are 117
What Companies and Interviewees Do 119
Social Media Data Mining as Moral and Economic Practice 124
Accessing ‘Public’ Data 126
Drawing Ethical Boundaries 129
Transparency as Ethics 131
Who Benefits from Social Media Data Mining? 133
Regulation as Ethical Solution? 135
Conclusion: Concerns and Ethics in Commercial Social Media Data Mining Practice 137
Chapter 6: What Happens to Mined Social Media Data? 141
Introduction 141
Interviewees, Organisations, and Their Uses of Social Media Data Mining 144
The Consequences of Social Media Data Mining 149
Concrete Action and Organisational Complexity 149
Organisational Change and the Quality of Working Life 153
Data Evangelism and ‘The Fetishism of the 1000’ 156
‘The Parasite on the Rhino’? Reflections on Ethical Issues 163
Conclusion: Consequences and Concerns 167
Chapter 7: Fair Game? User Evaluations of Social Media Data Mining 170
Introduction 170
What Do Users Think? Studies of Users’ Views 173
Quantitative Studies of Attitudes to Digital Data Tracking 173
Qualitative Studies of Social Media User and Attitudes to Social Media Data Mining, and the ‘Contextual Integrity’ Framework 177
Focus Group Methods for Researching User Perspectives 180
What Do Users Think? Focus Group Findings 182
Diverse Perspectives 182
Common Threads: Concerns About Fairness 190
What Concerns Users? Fairness, Transparency, Contextual Integrity 196
Chapter 8: Doing Good with Data: Alternative Practices, Elephants in Rooms 199
Introduction 199
Elephants in Rooms: Academic Social Media Data Mining 201
Overview of Academic Social Media Data Mining 201
Concerns and Criticisms 203
Un-Black-Boxing Social Media Data Mining 208
Alternative Practices: Data Activism 212
The Open Data Movement 212
Re-active and Pro-active Data Activism 215
Doing Good, Or Doing Bad, Through Data Activism? 222
Conclusion 227
Chapter 9: New Data Relations and the Desire for Numbers 230
Established Concerns 231
Emerging Concerns 233
The Desire for Numbers 233
(Not) Thinking Critically About Data-making 234
Work Effects 237
Doing Good with Data 239
New Data Relations 241
Doing Better with Data 243
Bibliography 246
Index 263