Big Data & Society
Open access peer-reviewed journal connecting debates on emerging Big Data practices & how they reconfigure academic, social, industry, & government relations.
- 📢 New in Big Data & Society Zimmer traces links between the Enron email corpus and contemporary foundation models, using the concept of “model collapse” to examine how AI training data shape today’s knowledge infrastructures. 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....
- 📢A new article in Big Data & Society examines conversational AI through a Habermassian lens, arguing that systems like ChatGPT risk “colonizing” conversations: 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....
- 📢 New in Big Data & Society Whose voice counts? Arsenault & Kreps examine whether large language models help close participation gaps in public rulemaking. LLMs make comment-writing easier and improve comment quality—but do not improve policy comprehension. 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....
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- Generative AI chatbots avoid sexism—but not ageism. Interviews with chatbots themselves reveal double standards in “political correctness” and how AI imagines users by age and gender. journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.... #GenerativeAI #DigitalAgeism #AlgorithmicBias #STS
- New in Big Data & Society: China’s Health Code Systems weren’t seamless surveillance tools—they were patchwork assemblages held together by street-level officials doing intense accountability labor under pressure. Surveillance works through mess, not automation: journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Who’s coding? An analysis of UK bootcamp experiences and outcomes” by Kate M. Miltner, Giti Kadar-Satat, Emily Ashton, and Lauren Scorer. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... #codingbootcamp #digitalskills #datascience
- ✨ New in Big Data & Society ✨ "'Missing Standardization': Identifying harmful language ideologies in natural language processing work” by Melissa Gasparotto. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #NLP #languageideologies #Indigenousdatasovereignty
- Today: BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Constructing Alternatives through Community Data & Data Activism. Join us live. uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887 #DataActivism #DataJustice
- Join us TOMORROW for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1. How do communities use data to build alternatives and advance justice and democracy while navigating bias and power in data collection and governance? Jan 21 | 16:00–18:00 GMT / 11:00 AM–1:00 PM EST uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887 #DataActivism
- Speaker spotlight for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Helena Suárez Val (Data Against Feminicide; Feminicidio Uruguay). Their work connects data, feminism, and human rights through activist research and digital communication practice focused on mapping feminicides. Jan 21 uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887
- Speaker spotlight for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Stefania Milan (University of Amsterdam). Her research sits at the intersection of political participation, infrastructure, and governance by data, with a focus on how people build political agency through and around data systems. #DataActivism
- Speaker spotlight for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Yanni Alexander Loukissas (Georgia Tech). Their work challenges digital universalism by showing how data are shaped by their settings, and how community centered mapmaking can function as a research instrument. Jan 21 uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887
- Join us for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Constructing Alternatives through Community Data & Data Activism. Community mapping, feminist data work, and data justice approaches that challenge entrenched power. Jan 21 | 16:00–18:00 GMT / 11:00 AM–1:00 PM EST uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887 #DataActivism
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Protecting society from itself: How the social credit system is justified on Chinese social media” by Christoph Steinhardt and Christian Göbel. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... #surveillance #privacy #infrastructuralpower
- Join us for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Constructing Alternatives through Community Data & Data Activism Jan 21 | 16:00–18:00 GMT (11:00 AM–1:00 PM EST) uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887 #DataActivism #CriticalDataStudies #DataJustice
- ✨ New in Big Data & Society ✨ "’Drilling down’ and ‘breaking glass’ – Evolving notions of public service ‘quality’ in the Norwegian health data space” by Tanja Plasil, Gunhild Tøndel, Mads Dahl Fjesen, and Odd Morten Mjøen. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... #quality #datafication
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "The dialectics of discretion in algorithmic governance and smart policing” by Ashwin Varghese. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #algorithmicgovernance, #discretion, #e-governance
- ✨ New in Big Data & Society ✨ "Between promise and peril: Users’ risk-benefit trade-offs in their generative AI usage” by Hongjie Tang, Mengxue Ou, and Han Zheng. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #GenerativeAI, #psychologicaldistance, #AIuse
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Demographic figures at risk in the digital era: Resisting commodification, reclaiming the common good” by @Edith Darin. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #demography #digitaltrace #census
- ✨ New in Big Data & Society ✨ "Refractive datasets as a sensemaking methodology in closed data ecosystems” by @Anna Beers, @Viviane Ito, @Agusting Orozco, @Patrick Gildersleve, @Pablo Aragón, and @Francesca Tripodi. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #computationalsocialscience #dataaccess
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Introducing a predictive experiment: Ethics, data and public defence in Chile” by Arturo Arriagada and Dusan Cotoras. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #ethics #datagovernance #AI
- ✨ New in Big Data & Society ✨ "Governing prediction: A material political economy of the computational toxicology market” by @David Demortain and @Henri Boullier. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #Digitalindustries #predictionsoftware #materialpoliticaleconomy
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Spectral imaginings and sympoietic creativity: AI hallucinations and the ethics of posthuman creativity” by Liang Ge. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... #AIhallucination #datacolonialism #posthumanhermeneutics
- The Big Data and Society Editorial Team will be on editorial break from December 17 to January 4. Please accept delays in processing and reviewing your submission and related correspondence during that time. Many thanks for your understanding!
- 🆕 New in Big Data & Society: How corporations in China, Germany & the US strategically shape AI governance through imaginaries like “Responsible AI” and “AI for Good.” A critical look at power, discourse & regulation. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #AIGovernance #TechPower #BigDataAndSociety
- How do ChatGPT and Bard respond to homophobic prompts across different cultural and religious contexts? New research reveals a tension between cultural relativism and universal human rights in generative AI: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #AIEthics #GenerativeAI #HumanRights
- AI as Political Concept 🤖🗳️ New Big Data & Society paper: AI discourse creates false certainty, hides human responsibility, and narrows democratic space. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Green Platform Capitalism 🌍💾 Amazon, Apple & Microsoft frame tech as the solution to climate — but new Big Data & Society research calls this “green platform capitalism.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Too Good To Go & CO₂ 📊🍽️ New Big Data & Society study: users largely don’t trust or act on “CO₂e avoided” scores in the Too Good To Go app. Fixed metrics ≠ meaningful impact. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- New in Big Data & Society: How should ethnographers navigate GenAI visuals? This commentary introduces a 3C Framework—Contextuality, Consent, Criticality—to support ethical and reflective use of AI-generated images in research. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- New in Big Data & Society: When—if ever—is opaque AI acceptable in clinical decision-making? This article outlines the reasons that can justify black-box AI in healthcare, emphasizing accuracy, reliability & context-specific considerations. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- New in Big Data & Society: Large global survey (N=1523) shows women & LGBTQ+ users are disproportionately misgendered by X’s gender inference algorithms. Misgendering strongly shapes trust, user attitudes & perceptions of platform governance. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
- Samuele Fratini examines how digital sovereignty is performed through infrastructures, institutions & imaginaries. Using the case of Threema, the article shows how privacy, seclusion & territorialism shape a “hybrid black box” of sovereignty. OA: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Mosaic of state power: How ‘New’ state capitalism shapes global tech capital” by Weidi Zheng. 🔗: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #newstatecapitalism #datagovernance #capitalism #governance
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Dancing with anklets: Navigating digital rural governance with big data in China” by Min Zhou. 🔗: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #digitalvillagestrategy #digitalruralgovernance #digitalgridsystem
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Feeding the machine: Practitioner experiences of efforts to overcome AI’s data dilemma” by Jo Bates, Monika Fratczak, Hellen Kennedy, Itzelle Medina Perea, and Erinma Ochu. 🔗: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #datainputs #machinelearning #datadilemma #datawork
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Data economy: A discussion on value, fictitious valorisation, and national sovereignty” by César Bolaño and Fabrício Zanghelini. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #dataeconomy #value #fictitiouscapital #nationalsovereignty
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Sex in the medical machine: How algorithms can entrench bioessentialism in precision medicine” by K. Ichikawa, M. Boulicault, A. Thinius, M. DiMarco, A. Murchland, B. Maldonado, A. Higgins, and S. Richardson. 🔓: lnkd.in/dwivCrXH #sex #gender #precisionmedicine
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Using archival versions of apps to understand emerging digital ecosystems" by James Burroughs, Ashwin Matthew, and Elisa Oreglia. 🔗: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #appanalysis #apphistoriography
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "When artificial intelligence meets accountability: Who holds legitimacy as account givers and holders?" by Shangrui Wang et al. doi.org/10.1177/2053... Finds citizens trust humans over AI in accountability roles, revealing tensions in public trust and governance.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 “Revolutionize medicine as we know it”: Shaping imaginaries of the European Health Data Space by Desirée Enlund doi.org/10.1177/2053... Examines how EU health data imaginaries shape digital care futures raising concerns over data commodification and Big Tech governance
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Bridging silos or adding friction?" by Wouter Van Rossem & Annalisa Pelizza doi.org/10.1177/2053... Explores how data work enables re-identification across interoperable systems, revealing hidden frictions in migration and government tech.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Synthetic data as meaningful data. On Responsibility in data ecosystems" by Marianna Capasso doi.org/10.1177/2053... Argues for a justice-centered approach to synthetic data, reframing it as meaningful and relational within responsible AI ecosystems.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Trans data epistemologies: Transgender ways of knowing with data" by Nikko Stevens & Amelia Lee Doğan doi.org/10.1177/2053... Explores how trans activists use and reimagine data as care, community power, and resistance through a trans data epistemology.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Intelligent toys, complex questions" by Wei Xiao & Alexandre Gonçalves doi.org/10.1177/2053... Reviews AI toys for kids, revealing gaps between educational claims and research, and calls for ethical design and regulation.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Supportive but apprehensive: Ambivalent attitudes towards a Danish public health AI and surveillance-driven project" by Shaul A. Duke et al. doi.org/10.1177/2053... Examines how concerns over risk, trust, and surveillance shape public support for health AI initiatives
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Contesting data power at the margins" by Ngai Keung Chan et al. doi.org/10.1177/2053.... Examines how Hong Kong activists use data imaginaries to challenge surveillance, develop counter-strategies, and mobilize under datafied control.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "The platformisation tree in China's AI data annotation ecosystem" by Bingqing Xia & Tongyu Wu doi.org/10.1177/2053... Uses the “platformisation tree” to examine how disability, precarity, and platform labor intersect in China's AI data annotation economy.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "China as an analytical lens for AI and society" by Chuncheng Liu & Zhifan Luo doi.org/10.1177/2053... Offers a four-part framework using “China” to rethink AI, political economy, and global entanglements in critical AI studies.
- 🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 "Cosine capital: Large language models and the embedding of all things" by Mikael Brunila doi.org/10.1177/2053... Proposes “cosine capital” to describe how LLM embeddings commodify language and data, reshaping power, abstraction, and AI economies.
