Eddy Borges-Rey is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism Studies, and the Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty and Arts and Humanities at the University of Stirling. He is also the Programme Director of the MSc. Media and Communications Management in Vietnam (Stirling-Vietnam National University). Overall, his research looks at the interplay between media, technology and power, particularly around issues in Data Journalism, Open Data, Big Data, Social Computation, Critical Data, Code and Algorithm Studies, AI and automation, Freedom of Information, Mobile Journalism, Innovation, Photojournalism, and Data Literacy. He has taught Journalism Studies, Production and Media Studies in Venezuela, Spain, Vietnam and the UK, and as professional he has worked as a journalist, a broadcast producer and PR practitioner for almost 15 years.
DJRG Fellow, June 2020
Title and abstract
Data for social change: literacy, champions and communities
Whilst reports on the marvels and failures of Big data populate the mainstream news agenda, citizens appear to be inadequately equipped to engage on equal terms with governments and corporations in the construction of a reality increasingly modelled by informational data. As numeracy, ability to use computers, and digital problem solving tend to be rather limited amongst adults, a growing need for citizens to be able to understand the dynamics underpinning data is generally unfulfilled.
Paradoxically, the idea of citizen empowerment through the use of ICTs remains a key objective in the era of Big data, primarily driven by expectations that new technologies and platforms will facilitate more responsive governments and provide people with access to information that will engender economic growth as well as creative and social fulfilment, especially after the launch of the Open Data Charter at the G8 summit in 2013. Despite the efforts of the G8 governments to open up their data stores for public scrutiny, the techniques and strategies used to filter databases and datasets, identify and isolate noteworthy information from numerical data, and translate mathematical abstractions into insight that informs and reinforces decisions at the different levels of society, remain generally excluded from the education system. National curricula appear to favour instrumental aspects of numeracy (Chevallard, 2013) to the detriment of the more critical approaches to data that are essential for the integral education of individuals living in our increasingly data-centric society.
This paper thus seeks to outline a set of challenges that emerge when Big data is not properly contextualised in the delivery of educational strategies for the enhancement of data literacy. In this vein, this paper considers firstly the materiality of computerised data to examine its implications for data literacy. And secondly, it examines how notions of data access, data sampling, data sense-making and data collection are nowadays intermediated or contested by datafied actors and institutions, hindering the capacity of citizens to effectively understand and make better use of the data they generate or engage with. Finally, the paper will examine a number of global case studies where the figure of data champions and data communities is effectively used to counter data illiteracy.
Selected publications
- Anderson, B. and Borges-Rey, E. (2019). Encoding the UX: User Interface as a Site of Encounter between Data Journalists and Their Constructed Audiences. Digital Journalism, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2019.1607520
- Borges-Rey, E., Heravi, B. and Uskali, T. (2018). Periodismo de datos iberoamericano: desarrollo, contestación y cambio social. Presentación. Revista ICONO14 Revista científica de Comunicación y Tecnologías emergentes, 16(2), 1-13.
- Stalph, F., & Borges-Rey, E. (2018). Data Journalism Sustainability: An outlook on the future of data-driven reporting. Digital Journalism, 6(8), 1078-1089.
- Borges-Rey, E. (2018). Data journalism as platform: Architecture, agents, protocols. In Eldridge II, S. A. and Franklin, B. The Routledge Handbook of Developments in Digital Journalism Studies. London: Routledge.
- Borges-Rey, E. (2016). Data literacy and citizenship: Understanding ‘Big data’ to boost teaching and learning in Science and Mathematics. In Ramirez Montoya, M.S. (ed) (2017) Handbook of Research on Driving STEM Learning with Educational Technologies. Pennsylvania: ICI Global.