[Air-L] New research report by the Data Justice Lab: Civic Participation in the Datafied Society

[Arne Hintz]

Dear all,


today the Data Justice Lab at Cardiff University is publishing a new research report on "Civic Participation in the Datafied Society". You can download it (pdf) here: https://datajusticelab.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/CivicParticipation_DataJusticeLab_Report2022.pdf


The report addresses a key problem of datafication: Although data systems are rapidly rolled out in the public sector, there is little public knowledge about these developments, with few possibilities to intervene into, and participate in, decisions about datafication. How, then, do we advance people’s voice in the deployment of data and AI? How do we democratise datafied governance?


In the report, we explore different ways in which citizens are – and can be - involved in these decisions which are fundamentally transforming societies. We investigate the roles of citizen juries and citizen summits, oversight and advisory institutions, civil society campaigns, alternative discourses and infrastructures, and efforts to advance data literacy, as well as the shortcomings of existing processes.


While there is a lack of institutional procedures for meaningful participation, we found many promising practices and proposals that establish a more central role for citizens in decisionmaking over data. Our research shows that the democratisation of datafied governance is a key challenge for contemporary societies.


The report provides a comprehensive set of findings from the 3-year research project "Towards Democratic Auditing: Civic Participation in the Scoring Society" which was funded by the Open Society Foundations and involved a wide range of interviews with experts and practitioners, observations of relevant practices, and fact-finding workshops.


Together with the report, we are also launching a new website - https://www.datafiedsociety.org/ - which summarises some of the arguments and cases discussed in the report.

Happy reading!
The Data Justice Lab


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Dr Arne Hintz
Reader | Director of Postgraduate Research | Co-Director Data Justice Lab
School of Journalism, Media and Culture | Cardiff University
Two Central Square | Cardiff CF10 1FS | Wales, UK
Email: HintzA at cardiff.ac.uk | Tel: +44 (0)29 208 76281 | Twitter: @arne_hz