Big Data in the Context of Studying Problems of Modern Society

Keywords: Big Data, Datafication, Datafied Society, Digital Methods

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of big data and the role that they play in the study of modern society. The evolution of the interpretation of big data is characterized and it is shown that the initial technological connotation of big data associated with emphasizing the extremeness of its volume, which does not allow processing by traditional methods and tools, has undergone significant transformations due to the inclusion of the human component. Now, big data is understood as a set of digital tracks that people leave when they use information technology: they surf the Internet, download mobile applications or music, chat with friends on social networks, use GPS, buy goods in online stores, etc. Big data is generated by the Internet, but it contains information not only about the Internet, but about society and the social processes that are displayed on the Internet. In other words, big data is datafied information about everything and everyone. It is shown that big data is a new source of information both about the world around us and about the development of social processes, which turns them into a valuable base of empirical sociological research. However, empirical research based on big data is impossible without solving a number of methodological problems, in particular, questions of “re-profiling” of online data processing methods used by Internet platforms in order to solve sociological problems. This necessitates the development of "digital methods" – a new direction in the field of methodology of sociological analysis, which is formed in connection with the wide dissemination of big data. It is emphasized that widespread datafication changes society and redefines human existence in the era of big data, and therefore it is impossible to consider big data outside the context of their “dark side”. It is concluded that today the urgent problem is the involvement of the sociological community in the development of a fair data policy.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Olga Kyslova, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University,4, Svobody Sq., Kharkiv, 61122, Ukraine

PhD in Sociological Science, Associate Professor, Department of Methods of Sociological Research, olga.kyslova@karazin.ua

References

Ботсман Р. Китайське попередження — як працює соціальний рейтинг на основі Big Data, 2017. URL: https://www.imena.ua/blog/big-data-big-brother-china

Губа К. Большие данные в социологии: новые данные, новая социология? Социологическое обозрение. Т. 17 (1)., 2018. С. 213-236.

Докучаев К. Google знает о вас всё: 14 вещей, которые могут вас удивить, 2017. URL: https://blog.themarfa.name/google-znaiet-o-vas-vsio/

Кислова О. Н. Интеллектуальный анализ данных: история становления термина. Український соціологічний журнал. №1-2, 2011. С. 83-94.

Кислова О. Н. Быть или не быть цифровой социологии? Вісник Харківського національного університету імені В. Н. Каразіна серія «Соціологічні дослідження сучасного суспільства: методологія, теорія, методи». № 1045, 2013 С. 9-15.

Кислова О. Н. Дополненная реальность сквозь призму интернет-практик современного студенчества. Методологія, теорія та практика соціологічного аналізу сучасного суспільства. Випуск 20, 2014. С. 351-356.

Кислова О. Н. Социология в контексте вызова «больших данных»: роль интеллектуального анализа данных в становлении новых подходов к социологическим исследованиям. Вісник Харківського національного університету імені В. Н. Каразіна серія «Соціологічні дослідження сучасного суспільства: методологія, теорія, методи». № 1148, 2015. С. 57-62.

Кислова О. Н., Николаевская А. М. Концепция дополненной реальности: от технологии к социологии. Вісник Харківського національного університету імені В. Н. Каразіна серія «Соціологічні дослідження сучасного суспільства: методологія, теорія, методи». Т. 37, 2016. С. 49-54.

Саріогло В. Г. Великі дані як джерело інформації та інструментарій для офіційної статистики: потенціал, проблеми, перспективи. Статистика України. № 4, 2016. С.12-19.

Boyd D., Crawford K. Critical Questions for Big Data: Provocations for a cultural, technological and scholarly phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society. Vol. 15 (5), 2013. Р. 662-679.

Burrows R., Savage M. After the crisis? Big Data and the methodological challenges of empirical sociology. Big data & societ. Vol. 1(1), 2014. URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951714540280

Cambridge Dictionary URL: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/big-data.

Chen Y., Yan F. Centuries of sociology in millions of books. The Sociological Review. Vol. 64 (4), 2016 Р. 872-893.

De Mauro A., Greco M., Grimaldi M. What is Big Data? A Consensual Definition and a Review of Key Research Topics. AIP Conference Proceedings. Vol. 1644 (1), 2015 Р. 97-104.

Dencik L. Understanding the Datafied Society by Decentring Data. iCS Symposium. 2018. URL: https://snurb.info/node/2424.

Di Salvo P. (2019). The role of whistleblowing in the datafied society. URL: https://en.ejo.ch/digital-news/technology/the-role-of-whistleblowing-in-the-datafied-society/

Ericsson E. The Impact of Datafication on Specific Landscapes. 1st ed. [ebook] London: Ericsson, Imperial College Business School & UK’s Sustainable Society Network, 2014. URL: https://www.ericsson.com/assets/local/news/2014/4/the-impact-of-datafication-on-strategic-landscapes.pdf

Foster I., Ghani R., Jarmin R. S., Kreuter F., Lane J. Big data and social science: A practical guide to methods and tools. London, UK/New York, NY: CRC Press, 2016.

Hintz A., Dencik L., Wahl-Jorgensen K. Digital citizenship in a datafied society. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

Hopkins B., Evelson B. Forrester: Big data – start small, but scale quickly. Computer Weekly, 2012. URL: http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Forrester-Big-Data-Start-Small-But-Scale-Quickly

Jurgenson N. When atoms meet bits: Social media, the mobile web and augmented revolution. Future Interne. № 4(1), 2012. Р. 83-91.

Marres N. Digital Sociology The Reinvention of Social Research. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.

Mayer-Schönberger V., Cukier K. Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

Metzler K., Kim D. A., Allum N., Denman A. Who is doing computational social science? Trends in big data research (White paper). London, UK: SAGE Publishing, 2016.

Pentland A. Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread. The Lessons from a New Science. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014.

Pentland А. Reinventing society in the wake of big data systems, 2012 URL: http://edge.org/conversation/reinventing-society-in-the-wake-of-big-data.

Press G. A Very Short History of Big Data, 2013 URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2013/05/09/a-very-short-history-of-big-data.

Redden J. Democratic governance in an age of datafication: Lessons from mapping government discourses and practices. Big Data & Society. Vol. 5 (2), 2018. URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951718809145.

Resnyansky L. Conceptual frameworks for social and cultural Big Data analytics: Answering the epistemological challenge. Big Data & Society. Vol. 6(1), 2019. URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951718823815

Rogers R. A. The End of the Virtual: Digital Methods. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009.

Rogers R. Digital methods for web research. Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences: An interdisciplinary, searchable, and linkable resource, 2015. Р. 1-22.

Rogers, R. Doing Digital Methods. SAGE Publications Limited, 2019.

Ruppert E., Isin E., Bigo D. Data politics. Big Data & Society. Vol. 4(2). 2017. URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951717717749

Schäfer M. T., Van Es K. F. The datafied society: Studying culture through data. Amsterdam University Press, 2017.

Shaw R. Big data and reality. Big Data & Society. Vol.1(4), 2015. Р. 1-4.

Snee H., Hine C., Morey Y., Roberts S., Watson H. Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovatio. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.

The Oxford English dictionary. URL: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/big_data

Venturini T., Bounegru L., Gray J., Rogers R. A reality check (list) for digital methods. New media & society. Vol. 20(11), 2018. Р. 4195-4217.

Venturini T., Latour B. The Social Fabric: Digital footprints and quali-quantitative methods. Proceedings of future en seine, 2009. Р. 87-103

Venturini T., Rogers R. API-Based Research or How can Digital Sociology and Journalism Studies Learn from the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Data Breach. Digital Journalism, 2019. Р. 1-9.

Published
2019-12-11
How to Cite
Kyslova, O. (2019). Big Data in the Context of Studying Problems of Modern Society. Visnyk of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Series Sociological Studies of Contemporary Society: Methodology, Theory, Methods, 42(-), 59-68. https://doi.org/10.26565/2227-6521-2019-42-06
Section
Empirical Researches of Modern Society