During the workshop "Civic engagement and digital media" that will take place on 5 September at the IT University of Copenhagen, Alice Mattoni will give a short talk on how activists deal with flows of big and small data on a daily basis in Greece, Italy and Spain.
Date: 05 SEPTEMBER 2019
Event location: IT University of Copenhagen
Type: Talk
Title
Datafication in the daily life of grassroots politics: how activists include, manage and produce flows of data in their political work
Abstract
How do activists cope with datafication in their daily political work? Which strategies do they develop to manage the flows of data that sustain their grassroots political engagement? And how do they do this in times of latency, when people are not in the streets? In this talk, I address these questions discussing how big data and the related web applications intertwine with other types of data and digital media in four pivotal practices related to activism in times of latency: the practice of coordinating the daily workflow of activists’ organizations; the practice of seeking information useful to sustain grassroots political engagement; the practice of gaining visibility for activists’ organizations; and the practice of sustaining connections with other actors relevant for activists and their political work. Drawing on a cross-country comparative research based on 85 in-depth interviews with media experts, journalists and political activists in Greece, Italy and Spain, I will show the different opportunities and challenges that the process of datafication implies for activists in Southern Europe.