Citizens’ media meets big data: the emergence of data activism

Abstract

Big data presents citizens with new challenges and opportunities. ‘Data activism’ practices emerge at the intersection of the social and techsnological dimension of human action, whereby citizens take a critical approach to big data, and appropriate and manipulate data for advocacy and social change. This theoretical article explores the emergence of data activism as an empirical reality and a heuristic tool to study how people engage politically with big data. We ground the concept on a multidisciplinary literature review, and offer a situated definition of data activism and a tentative agenda for its study. We argue that data activism represents a new form of citizens’ media that has a critical approach to big data at its core.