Making data valuable

political, economic, and conceptual bases of big data

Anna L. Hoffmann

pp. 209-212

in: Anna L. Hoffmann (ed), Countercultures of data, Philosophy & Technology 31 (2), 2018.

Abstract

The ascendency of so-called big data as a driving technological, economic, and political force has hinged, in part, on an understanding of people’s social and behavioral data as valuable. Sometimes, this value is simply taken as self-evident—that is, more data just does lead to better knowledge, keener insights, and (for those who can harness it) social and economic gain. Other times, personal data is metaphorically positioned as a kind of natural resource—the data is simultaneously “the new oil” and something to be “mined”—that fuels scholarly and economic progress alike (Puschmann and Burgess 2014). Still further, data’s value is necessarily implicit in debates around the kinds of expertise (human and machinic, centralized or distributed) big data demands (Bassett 2015).