The Politics of Big Data

What is it about?

The paper explores the role of political power struggles in the emergent big data domain. It finds that power struggles manifest in three arenas: the social sciences, the information state, and public sector bureaucracy. The most positive opportunities for utilizing and advancing big data are in the arena of government bureaucracy where big data may prompt agencies to engage in more efficient data sharing.

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Why is it important?

Big data and its impact on the citizen, society and the state is of increasing importance in the information state. This timely paper examines the political power struggles that influence the potential of big data to benefit or burden citizens and the state. The paper's findings (that big data is potentially most beneficial at the level of government bureaucracy where it can prompt agencies to share data more efficiently) present a focused future direction for big data research and innovation.