Compromised Data: From Social Media to Big Data

There has been a data rush in the past decade brought about by online communication and, in particular, social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, among others), which promises a new age of digital enlightenment. But social data is compromised: it is being seized by specific economic interests, it leads to a fundamental shift in the relationship between research and the public good, and it fosters new forms of control and surveillance. Compromised Data: From Social Media to Big Data explores how we perform critical research within a compromised social data framework. The expert, international lineup of contributors explores the limits and challenges of social data research in order to invent and develop new modes of doing public research. At its core, this collection argues that we are witnessing a fundamental reshaping of the social through social data mining.

Greg Elmer is Bell Globemedia Research Chair and Director of the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media at Ryerson University, Canada. His research and teaching focus on new media and politics, theories and methods in social media studies, surveillance theory, and media globalization.

Ganaele Langlois is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University, Canada.

Joanna Redden is an Assistant Professor of Critical Media Studies at the University of Calgary. Her work investigates how digital technologies influence political, media, and protest practices specifically as related to poverty, inequality, and governance.