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Crowd-Sourcing The Smart City: Using Big Geosocial Media Metrics In Urban Governance, Matthew Zook
Crowd-Sourcing The Smart City: Using Big Geosocial Media Metrics In Urban Governance, Matthew Zook
Geography Faculty Publications
Using Big Data to better understand urban questions is an exciting field with challenging methodological and theoretical problems. It is also, however, potentially troubling when Big Data (particularly derived from social media) is applied uncritically to urban governance via the ideas and practices of “smart cities”. This essay reviews both the historical depth of central ideas within smart city governance —particular the idea that enough data/information/knowledge can solve society problems—but also the ways that the most recent version differs. Namely, that the motivations and ideological underpinning behind the goal of urban betterment is largely driven by technology advocates and neoliberalism …
Affect And Value In Critical Examinations Of The Production And ‘Prosumption’ Of Big Data, Daniel G. Cockayne
Affect And Value In Critical Examinations Of The Production And ‘Prosumption’ Of Big Data, Daniel G. Cockayne
Geography Faculty Publications
In this paper I explore the relationship between the production and the value of Big Data. In particular I examine the concept of social media ‘prosumption’—which has predominantly been theorized from a Marxist, political economic perspective—to consider what other forms of value Big Data have, imbricated with their often speculative economic value. I take the example of social media firms in their early stages of operation to suggest that, since these firms do not necessarily generate revenue, data collected through user contributions do not always realize economic value, at least in a Marxist sense, and that, in addition to their …