Big Data Critique talk given by Richard Rogers at Data Days Berlin, 30 Sept - 1 Oct 2014

1. BIG DATA CRITIQUE
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers
New Media & Digital Culture
University of Amsterdam

2. Overview
1. Whither Big Data? (Wohin?)
2. Recent shift in Big Data from hype to disillusionment
3. Five Big Data Critiques
4. After Critique: Enriching Big Data
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

3. Google Flu Trends:
Predictive algorithms in action
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

4. Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam
Google&Flu&
Trends&vastly&
overes2mates&
rate&of&influenza&
in&2012&and&
2013&in&the&USA&
Is&Big&Data&measuring&societal&
trends&or&media&effects?&
Sources:&D.&Butler,&Nature,&494,&2013;&D.&
Lazer&et&al.,&Science,&343,&2014.&

5. Big Data – a recent dip in hype and
first indication of disappointment
“Big Data”
July 2013 * *July 2014
Source:&Gartner,&
Hype&Cycles,&2014&

6. BIG DATA CRITIQUE
FIVE POINTS

7. Big Data Critique – 5 points
1. Reputational shift to large-scale infrastructures and
their analysts (Big Data handlers)
• Big Data and Big Analytics are preferred modes of
analysis and are awarded funding and contracts over
other modes.
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

8. Big Data Critique – 5 points
2. Paradigm shift from interpretation (hermeneutics) to
pattern-recognition, or from ‘close reading’ to ‘distant
reading’
• Big Data focuses on overall trends and anomalies -
the obvious and the obscure.
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

9. Big Data Critique – 5 points
Twitter co-hashtag analysis
of Dutch federal civil
service use, 2012-2013.
Visualization by Gephi
(Borra and Rogers, 2013)

10. Big Data Critique – 5 points
3. Analytical shift in commitments and literacies to who
can ‘read’ and grasp the visualisations
• Big Data readings can prompt apophenia: seeing
patterns where there are none. (boyd and Crawford, Info Comm Soc, 15,
2012.)
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

11. Big Data Critique – 5 points
4. Organisational shift to relying on one small team of
data scientists (with special data access privileges). (See
Tiropanis, Hall et al. Big Dat, 2, 2014)
• “Thick data” specialists are no longer providing the
insights.
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

12. Big Data Critique – 5 points
5. Shift to relying on (available) signals rather than
seeking out (unavailable) ones.
• Relying on more and more (available) signals does
mean that there is good societal ‘coverage’. There are
data-rich and data-poor (Crawford, Harvard Bus Rev, 2013)
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

13. Big Data – a recent dip in hype and
first indication of disappointment
Source:&Gartner,&
Hype&Cycles,&2014&
July 2013 * *July 2014
July 2015? *
“Big Data”
Next steps:
Incorporating
Broad Data,
All Data,
Thick Data and
Small Data
into Big Data

14. THANK YOU
Prof. Dr. Richard Rogers
Author of Digital Methods (MIT Press, 2013)