What Communication Can Contribute to Data Studies: Three Lenses on Communication and Data

Authors

  • Andrew Schrock Woodbury University

Keywords:

data, big data, open data, communication theory, computer-mediated communication

Abstract

We are awash in predictions about our data-driven future. Enthusiasts believe big data imposes new ways of knowing, while critics worry it will enable powerful regimes of institutional control. This debate has been of keen interest to communication scholars. To encourage conceptual clarity, this article draws on communication scholarship to suggest three lenses for data epistemologies. I review the common social scientific perspective of communication as data. A data as discourse lens interrogates the meanings that data carries. Communication around data describes moments where data are constructed. By employing multiple perspectives, we might understand how data operate as a complex structure of dominance.

Author Biography

Andrew Schrock, Woodbury University

Andrew R. Schrock is currently active in the public sector in Southern California as an instructor, consultant and volunteer. His research and practice focuses on how grassroots groups and governments can effectively and ethically use data to improve civic life. Andrew’s research has appeared in the International Journal of Communication, Information, Communication & Society, and New Media & Society. For more information, please visit his website at aschrock.com.

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Published

2017-02-14

Issue

Vol. 11 (2017)

Section

Features

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