The Technopolitics of Data-Driven Society: The Difference End-Users Make with Information Technology and Data Analytics

• In Event: 1245 - Designing for Social Justice? The Politics of Technology

Abstract

Data analytics and information technology have unleashed an unparalleled data revolution, transforming social institutions ranging from health care, education, and criminal justice. Previous social science scholarship has primarily characterized the political nature of this sociotechnical change within two scholarly traditions: Governmentality scholars emphasize the use of data in the management and conduct of life itself, while others consider the sociocultural values embedded within technical design. In this paper, I present a third approach in studying the politics of the sociotechnical by considering the use of data within everyday practice among heterogeneous end-users. While data and technology are often heralded as neutral means of achieving socially desirable goals, I show how these new technical apparatuses are thoroughly political in transforming organizational decision-making, redistributing resources, and reconfiguring the professional gaze. Drawing from an “ethnography of data” conducted at a large health system, I demonstrate how key on-the-ground actors make intimate decisions regarding the scope of data collection, algorithmic calculation, and program implementation in pursuing data-driven care. I conclude by arguing that data and technology spread power and politics across new audiences of implicated actors, resulting in the new and emerging technopolitics of data-driven society.

Author

• Taylor M. Cruz, California State University, Fullerton