The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures & Their Consequences

“People and organizations are existing and navigating in an increasingly connected world as a result of the growing use and implementation of digital technologies and data [26, 32, 39].”

“Other authors argue in the same direction and propose alternative terms such as ‘ sublata ’ (achievements) (Latour, 1999) or ‘ capta ’ (taken) (Kitchin, 2014).”

“…“a higher proportion of male residents, of unmarried population, and minority population; a higher unemployment rate; and more limited English speakers” tend to use 311 requests less frequently even though they experience similar issues with heat and hot water problems as their counterparts [11].”

“Large volumes of data are central to firm strategies in the consumer and financial service industries as well as in the industrial context (Kitchin, 2014).”

“Increases in computing power and storage make the analysis of this data possible, and new kinds of information and knowledge can supposedly be produced based on ‘real world’ data rather than just theories and hypotheses (Kitchin, 2014; Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, 2014; Anderson, 2008).”

“These promises are part of a broader imaginary dealing with the ‘Big Data revolution’ (Kitchin 2014), which could have a massive impact on future insurance markets (Ernst&Young 2016).”

“Additionally, in the current state of MSS, the conceptualization of playlists extends to the association with “ data fi cation ” (Kitchin, 2014).”

“…and/as knowledge dealing with questions of epistemology, research methodology, and decision-making based on big data analytics (see Gitelman, 2013; Kitchin, 2014; Rieder & Simon, 2016); (2) big data power focusing on emerging social divides, forms of surveillance, control, governance and…”

“Data facilitate forms of ranking that have become intrinsic to new public governance (Merry 2016), though it is well known that datafication processes both illuminate and hide aspects of the phenomena they are supposed to capture (Kitchin 2014; Sullivan 2017).”

“…of informational materials and codes but represent intricate digital systems that are “ embedded within a larger institutional landscape of researchers, institutions and corporations constituting essential tools in the production of knowledge, governance and capital ” (Kitchin, 2014: 21).”

“To clarify: “ data ” are raw elements abstracted from a phenomenon 1 , and in a digital context, these raw elements are typically understood as discrete units of information (Kitchin 2014).”

“Scholars like Gitelman and Jackson (2013) and Kitchin (2014) have addressed this misconception of data as ‘ raw ’ material, clarifying that data cannot exist prior to its construction, that it needs ‘ to be imagined ’ to exist (Gitelman & Jackson, 2013, p. 3).”

“All of these sources are relevant for both real-time analysis and medium-term planning of transport systems (Chen et al., 2016; Kitchin, 2014; Mori et al., 2015; Zheng et al., 2013).”

“…“smart urbanism”—in which digital technologies, real-time data collection, and predictive analytics are seen as having the potential to address contemporary urban challenges—have been extensively discussed (e.g., Kitchin, 2014a; Leszczynski, 2020; Luque-Ayala and Marvin, 2015; Marvin et al., 2016).”

“Although data might be framed technically, economically, ethically, temporally, spatially and philosophically [3], the”

“Cockayne (2016) frames these as instances of prosumption through ‘ automated ’ Big Data (see also Kitchin, 2014).”

“Data assemblages are comprised of organizations as well as data, and it is often through these that particular business practices, strategies, and systems of thought come to shape the assemblage and the nature and uses of the data (Kitchin, 2014).”

“Within the span of a decade from Google Earth ’ s release in 2005, mobile computing devices and sensors became so a ff ordable that even modest research budgets could utilize them at scale (Elwood & Leszczynski, 2013; Kitchin, 2014).”

“A data assemblage is a socio-technical system composed of several apparatuses and elements that entwine, develop, and mutate over time and space (Kitchin, 2014, pp. 24–25).”

“This speaks more broadly to the tendency of smart cities to be tech-nologically-driven and focused on Big Data extraction and production before understanding the bene fi ts of deploying these technologies and capturing such data (Kitchin, 2014a).”

“’ Despite suggesting facticity, however, data always come from a subjective selection executed from a situated position such that ‘ data are never simply just data; how data are conceived and used varies between those who capture, analyse and draw conclusions from them ’ (Kitchin, 2014, p. 5).”

“A related approach to Haraway’s ‘staying with the trouble’ is a programme of research called critical data studies (CDSs), drawing primarily from scholars in geography and cultural studies (Dalton and Thatcher 2014; Iliadis and Russo, 2016; Kitchin, 2014; Kitchin and Lauriault, 2014).”

“Widespread use of public sector data on the Internet indicates that there is a movement toward distributing such datasets for use by the public and private sectors [9,10].”

“As the information used for marketing campaigns must be accurate to calculate the campaign’s financial details, unverified information or incorrect data leads to potentially costly miscalculations (Kitchin, 2014).”

“In our case, this data can be mined in terms of its usability for the aforementioned transport planning purposes (Kitchin 2014).”

“Implicit in this narrative is the assumption that smart technologies are inherently value-free and benign, and are used for progressive and egalitarian ends (Kitchin, 2014).”

“Data science has been criticized for its reductionist, dichotomous and oversimplified methods of collecting, sharing, and storing of vast amounts of data in an attempt to understand, control and predict a complex world (Boyd & Crawford, 2012; Kitchin, 2014; Loukissas, 2019; McQuillan, 2018).”

“…representations of the world are never neutral, raw, or self-evident; instead, they are sociotechnical constructs (Bowker, 2006: 184; Gitelman, 2013; Kitchin, 2014a) as they are based on preliminary decisions about what is to be datafied and are also dependent on what can be datafied at all.”

“…between how big data in business has a strong association with value and competition; whereas, the shift to data-centric research in academia has been aligned with the open movement, with the goal of transparency and broader societal benefits from public research investment (Kitchin, 2014).”

“The analysis leads to the interpretation of data, consequently revealing some sort of ‘relationships and truths about the world’ (Kitchin, 2014: 38; Thatcher, O’Sullivan and Mahmoudi, 2016).”

“…coincided with the increasing proliferation of metadata management as a critical factor in the organization of large quantities of coded information (Bowker and Star 1999; Kitchin 2014) and the diversification of product and service portfolios on top of existing assets (Hass 2011; Pellegrini 2013).”

“Kitchin (2014) argues that businesses have a continuous need to locate, create and exploit digital opportunities, making the future prospect of a ‘datafied’ product such as the IELS operating on a global scale an attractive proposition.”

“…at government level, which are rendering large, wide, and varied socio-economic and environmental datasets publicly available (covering areas such as transport, census, health, land use, and environmental quality), to the benefit of informed and evidence-based planning processes (Kitchin, 2014).”

“…’ and accounting are designed by humans with practical purposes and aims in mind, shows a ffi nities with current perspectives on data analytics in media, science and technology and critical data studies, as well as the history of science and information (e.g. Kitchin 2014, Beer 2019, Koopman 2019).”

“Rather, they keep on transforming through their exposure to the activities of those who work with them, including transmission, merging with data from other sources, consolidation and ‘cleaning’, analysis, and eventually deletion (Bates et al. 2016; Kitchin 2014, 2021).”

“En el proceso de informatización y datificación de la sociedad (Kitchin, 2014), el algoritmo, junto con los big data, no solo sirve para describir cómo es el mundo.”

“…administrative (Davies, 2010; Janssen, 2012; Kornberger, Meyer, Brandtner, & Höllerer, 2017; Pereira, Macadar, Luciano, & Testa, 2017), technological (Kitchin, 2014; Reichman, Jones, & Schildhauer, 2011; Zuiderwijk, Janssen, Choenni, Meijer, & Alibaks, 2012) and cultural contexts (Brunette et al.,…”

“…(Esty and Rushing 2007), “algorithmic regulation” (O’Reilly 2013), “data-smart governance” (Goldsmith and Crawford 2014), “smart urbanism” (Gabrys 2014; Kitchin 2014a), “data-driven urbanism” (Kitchin 2017), and “data-driven city” (Flowers 2013) generally pointing to a “revolution” or…”

“The explosive spread of new digital communication technologies employing the internet or cellular networks (‘digitalisation’ here-after) has had profound effects on individuals and societies worldwide (De Waal, 2014; Kitchin, 2014).”

“…enable organizations to leverage advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics, which aid in overcoming of topographical boundaries and the enactment of topological time and space (Gulson and Sellar 2019; Hartong and Förschler 2019; Kitchin 2014).”

“Literature indicates that smart city initiatives continue to raise questions about whether data is genuinely used in the public interest (Batty, 2013; Cinnamon, 2020; Kitchin, 2014a; Söderström & Datta, 2023).”

“Yet the potential and importance of elevators and media infrastructures to open data remains to be explored (Kitchin 2014, 48).”

“…panoptic and post-panoptic forms of surveillance, social sorting is depending on ‘ dataveillance ’ , that is surveillance enacted through the processing and analysing of data records (Kitchin, 2014), searchable databases, the operation of networked communication systems, and algorithms.”

“Enumeration, counting, and data generation is a form of recognition and legitimation (boyd and Crawford 2012; Crawford, Gray, and Miltner 2014; Kitchin 2014).”

“At the same time, governments have been eager to adopt ‘‘open data initiatives’’ that make data available for free reuse and republishing to everyone, without restrictions related to copyright or patents (8, 9).”

“The use of normative scientific language is central to education’s key tensions (Kitchin 2014); medical metaphor in education is not only familiar, but has ardently been critiqued, for example, for how it ‘uses the language of science and efficiency to enhance its own status’ (Apple 1986/2013, 142).”

“Despite the proliferation of new forms of big and open data (Kitchin, 2014), and a resurgence of interest in critical approaches to mapping and quan-ti fi cation among human geographers in recent years ( The Canadian Geographer , 2018; ACME , 2022), it seems that the data most necessary to make…”

“This hierarchical model, that has also been presented in the form of a “knowledge pyramid” (Kitchin, 2014), exemplifies that data always precedes information, which precedes knowledge, which precedes understanding and wisdom (see Figure 2).”

“That is why some talk about a ‘ data deluge ’ (The Economist 2010) able to radically change both the individual and the social behaviours and others (Kitchin 2014) label the present time as ‘ the data revolution era ’ .”