Week 8 – Critical Questions for Big Data

I really enjoyed Boyd and Crawford’s article on Big Data and their discussion of how collecting and analyzing such Big Data is not always as powerful and beneficial as one might imagine. Boyd and Crawford ask whether examining information such as conversations on social media, phone calls, and individuals’ genetics will ultimately lead to enhanced services for the public or cause more breaching of privacy and aggressive advertising. I believe that the latter is more likely since currently Big Data seems to be predominantly used to improve marketing strategies. While there may be research areas in which Big Data is more useful than other disciplines, I agree with the authors’ belief that numbers do not “speak for themselves” (Boyd & Crawford, 2012, p. 666). I feel that other disciplines, such as psychology and sociology, are just as valuable as Big Data in understanding human activities. 

I also found the authors’ discussion surrounding ethical use of publicly available information quite interesting. In my opinion, it is not acceptable to distort or misrepresent an individuals’ public writing. However, I don’t think that researchers should be required to attain consent from social media users in order to utilize their data, since these users are knowingly posting personal information for all to see.

References

boyd, danah and Crawford, Kate (2012). Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society 15(5): 662–679.

- Alicja