Text

All Data Are Local: Thinking Critically in a Data-Driven Society

---

How to analyze data settings rather than data sets, acknowledging the meaning-making power of the local. In our data-driven society, it is too easy to assume the transparency of data. Instead, Yanni Loukissas argues in All Data Are Local , we should approach data sets with an awareness that data are created by humans and their dutiful machines, at a time, in a place, with the instruments at hand, for audiences that are conditioned to receive them. The term data set implies something discrete, complete, and portable, but it is none of those things. Examining a series of data sources important for understanding the state of public life in the United States—Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, the Digital Public Library of America, UCLA's Television News Archive, and the real estate marketplace Zillow—Loukissas shows us how to analyze data settings rather than data sets. Loukissas sets out six principles: all data are local; data have complex attachments to place; data are collected from heterogeneous sources; data and algorithms are inextricably entangled; interfaces recontextualize data; and data are indexes to local knowledge. He then provides a set of practical guidelines to follow. To make his argument, Loukissas employs a combination of qualitative research on data cultures and exploratory data visualizations. Rebutting the “myth of digital universalism,” Loukissas reminds us of the meaning-making power of the local.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Call Number

-

Publisher

Cambridge : The MIT Press., 2019

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262352215

Classification

NONE

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

-

Subject(s)

-

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

By Yanni Alexander Loukissas

Other Information

Cataloger

Jemadi

Source

-

Validator

-

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11543.001.0001

Journal Volume

-

Journal Issue

-

Subtitle

-

Parallel Title

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment