Information School News

Digital Data Flows and the COVID-19 Pandemic - should we be paying more attention?  As a third of the global population experiences some form of lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world are adapting to new ways of living and working, and looking for radical solutions to live with the virus until some form of immunity develops. Digital technologies and the data they process have been central to this response. The production and circulation of digital data is constrained by a complex web of deeply politicised social, cultural, legal, economic and technical factors. These constraints – or, “data frictions” - can be beneficial or problematic, and whether a particular friction is one or the other is often subject to significant debate. Shifts in the nature of data frictions have the potential to influence how societies function at the most fundamental level – they shape the relationship between state and citizens, the management of worker...

Congratulations to Dr Jo Bates , Dr Andrew Cox , Dr Angela Lin and Dr Paul Reilly at the Information School have been appointed as editors for the international Online Information Review journal.

Dr Paul Reilly and Dr Jo Bates were interviewed by University of Sheffield student Jonathan S Pickles for The National Student. The article 'The far right and false imagery' article examines on how far-right groups have doctored images of celebrities to spread fear about refugees in Europe. The full article can be read here

A blog post from the Information School's Dr Jo Bates has been published on the LSE Impact blog. Jo's post entitled 'Towards a critical data science - the complicated relationship between data and the democratic project' discusses the use of data science by politicians and policy makers to capture, analyse and respond to the public mood. The post considers how this development may impact on the democratic process and the full post can be viewed on the LSE blog here. Further discussion on the use of data management in US electoral campaigning can also be found in an article by Senior Lecturer Dr Gianluca Demartini at the Information School. Gianluca's article entitled 'Clinton-Sanders data breach spat goes to the heart of modern campaigning' was recently published in The Conversation.