An excerpt from The Data Gaze, this newsletter, and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
This newsletter is a little different to the normal format. It's a bit like a pre-recorded radio show. I'm doing my marking at the moment, whilst also trying to complete a project that has a deadline at the end of March, so I prepared this one in advance. That gave me an opportunity to vary things a bit. I've included two main things. First, I've included a short excerpt from my book The Data Gaze. Second, I've included some reflections on why I set up this newsletter in the first place and where it might go. As usual, I've still added a short note on something from pop culture at the end - this time it's the food show Diners, Drive-ins & Dives. I’ll return to the more common format in the next letter.
But first…Surveillance Capitalism…
I've taken delivery of a copy of Shoshana Zuboff's book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The plan is to try to write a review article about the book. Given how long and detailed the book is I thought people might possibly find some little pointers and outlines about the book useful. So, as I'm reading it I might add some brief reflections on different bits of the book in future newsletters.
I posted a couple of podcast interviews in a previous newsletter, in addition there is a short interview with Zuboff about the book here.
And a long lecture on surveillance capitalism and democracy here.
A short excerpt from The Data Gaze…
My recent book The Data Gaze: Capitalism, Power & Perception was published in December. The book explores the new types of knowledge that are emerging around data. Below is a short excerpt from a chapter about professional data analysts and data engineers. It focuses on the historical development of the role of the data analyst:
In the early 1980s, as part of a thought experiment, the data processing expert D.R. Howe conjured an imaginary manufacturing company, Torg Ltd. Howe was interested in using this imaginary company to explore the possibilities of combining data analysis with data base design. Howe (1983: 3) used this ‘mythical’ manufacturing company to ask ‘what is non-redundant data? Why share it? What problems arise in sharing data and how can they be overcome?’. The imagined company, we are told, proceeded with some caution, aware, as they were, that ‘many pitfalls await the unwary in the development of computerized systems’ (Howe, 1983: 3). As a result, they start by simply using a data base system to produce an up-to-date product catalogue. A wise move perhaps. Yet it is a move that contrasts sharply with the clambering data-centric enthusiasm captured in the visions of the data imaginary discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Such a shift from a cautionary to an unflinching embracing of data has moved those responsible for data-led processes to center stage. In those early and tentative ruminations, Howe suggests that data analysis can be understood as ‘the properties of the data which exist independently of the transactions which may operate on the data’, this he then distinguishes from ‘functional analysis’ which is ‘the analysis of the transactions which the data model must support’ (Howe, 1983: 156). In Howe’s reflections, which describe the role of analysis in data base systems, there is an early attempt at the separation of the analysis of data from the analysis of data systems and their outputs. We see then that the terminology and differentiation of the analytic gaze has been a concern since the fairly early stages of computerized data use and data led processes. In these early accounts of the expansion of computerized and data management systems, there reside some of the origins from which our current circumstances have arisen. This is most notable in accounting for the division of labour in data systems and the interwoven relations between the analysis of these systems and the analysis of the data those systems store and deliver.
Writing in the mid 1970s, a few years before Howe’s thought experiment, the computer scientist S.M. Deen (1977: 184) noted that:
‘the introduction of a data base as the central reservoir of data affects the user organization in a number of ways. For example, it changes the organisation’s attitude to data requirements and management, it creates new authorities and it brings in new skills’.
A change in attitude towards data and the emergence of new skills, these are identified as the key changes that are likely to arise. Again, the watery metaphors of Chapter 4 reoccur in the description of data – giving some sense of the longer history of such comparisons. This also reveals that the data gaze has a history and is based within a genealogy of data analytic actors. Organisational structures have been reshaped by these data-centered systems since at least the 1970s, with the roles and practices of actors morphing and developing since that time. The above passage suggests that the arrival of these data systems brought with it new types of skills and created new authorities. Those that have a legitimised knowledge and an aptitude to work with the data took on a new and more prominent role in organisations, especially where these organisations began to reshape themselves and bend to the presence of data. Deen saw this as a change of perspective as well as a shift in practice. He felt that it was necessary that the arrival of these new database systems would also bring about a reorientation in training – people needed to reconfigure their thinking, this suggests, to fit the new order. This ‘reorientation course’ he contended, ‘should be designed not only to teach the staff new skills, but also to reorientate their outlooks as dictated by the needs of the data base’ (Deen, 1977: 185). The data gaze is not just about a shift in technique, it is also a shift in outlook. The data gaze began to establish itself in such moments of organisational reorientation. Indeed, one data warehousing expert has suggested that this type of professional ‘information processing’ has only really existed since the 1960s (Inmon, 1996: 1), meaning that the moment of reorientation has been unfolding for some 50 years or so.
Why I set up this newsletter…
When I spotted that the tech writer Wendy Liu had set up a newsletter it gave me the idea to start this. It also gave me the platform to do it on. I'd been looking for a little while to find some other way of sharing and communicating about interesting things. The newsletter format struck me as an interesting way to do it. A bit more personal than a blog post, a bit more reflective than Twitter. It’s also more direct and isn't as ephemeral as social media. I can think of it more as an ongoing project instead of a momentary post. I've mostly used Twitter to share things that I find interesting and to interact with people about their work. There are aspects of social media that are really helpful - connecting with people, sharing, discovering and learning about what is happening in particular fields. The rapid flows of social media make it more difficult to work with though. And then there are the more unsettling aspects.
I'm hoping people will find the newsletter to be useful. I’m starting to get a better sense of how it will develop. My plan is for it to be a resource. I'm going to try to use it to curate and comment on the masses of content across the broad areas of technology, media and culture. So much stuff is swirling around making it hard to know where to focus our attention - maybe this newsletter will give some options on what is worth looking at more closely. That's the plan at least. I'm also hoping it will enable a slower and more reflective pace to the sharing. Maybe the newsletters might even provide a bit of a sense of community. If readers have ideas for things I could include, changes to the format or approach I'm using, topics to be covered, questions they would like answered then please contact me. I've mentioned previously that I'm planning to vary the content and coverage, so any input is very welcome.
And Diners, Drive-ins and Dives…
When there is little on TV and the need to make a choice from the masses of stuff is more than I can manage, I often flick distractedly to the Food channel. Its a strange mix of stuff. A common staple of the channel is Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Multiple episodes line up in a row. The premise is simple. Guy Fieri drives across the US watching food being cooked in different types of diners. There is something mesmerising about watching the food getting moved about on the almost ubiquitous hotplates. Industrial size blenders mix and mammoth barbecues smoke. Dry rub spice mixes, melting cheese, garlic powder and salted greens. Sauces and gravies, sides and relishes. Both easy to watch and absorbing, I’m not sure why the show is so gripping. There’s a ethnographic element I suspect - it gives a glimpse into everyday life across a geography. Then there is the materiality on show. In the Dialectic of Enlightenment Adorno and Horkheimer write about the way we consume the products of the culture industry in a well-worn groove. It's the standardisation of the formulas of culture, they argue, that lulls the viewer into an unquestioning passivity. I’ve taught from that text for more than a dozen years. Sometimes students will ask what us wrong with consuming in a distracted state. I tell them why Adorno and Horkheimer thought it was a problem, whilst thinking of how I watch Guy Fieri watching someone flipping a burger. That’s exactly the kind of doublethink that Adorno and Horkheimer point at in the last paragraph of their chapter on the culture industry.