The project examined how social processes and personal lifestyles are increasingly linked to the generation and analysis of large amounts of data. More and more areas of life are being datafied - a transnational development characterised by unequal opportunities, economic interests and legal frameworks. Data scandals such as Snowden's revelations or Cambridge Analytica show the global dimension of datafication and illustrate that data is evaluated and discussed differently in society, depending on the media, context and time.
How are aggregated data and new data-based processes framed in the media?
The project examined how large amounts of data and the processes based on them are framed in a media-communicative manner. It reconstructed the framing of big data on a broad material basis from a comparative perspective. Three levels were linked to one another: First, the frames in professional forms of communication were compared with those in participatory forms of communication. Second, the influence relationships between these editorially and journalistically produced or user-generated frames were traced over time. Thirdly, these processes were examined in a country comparison of Germany, the USA and South Africa.
In doing so, the project addressed three essential gaps in order to understand the creation of cultural meaning in the context of expansive datafication processes: Firstly, it recorded the repertoire of interpretations of big data in a comparison of forms of communication. Second, it explored the dynamic development of the discourse on big data over time. Thirdly, it discussed the variance in perspectives on big data in a country comparison.
In order to achieve the three research goals, the project used a multi-method design. The combination of data and methods allowed the comparative recording of media frames and the temporal relationship between journalistic and user-generated articles. It included the qualitative preliminary analysis of socio-political issues and aspects of presentation. Based on this, the press releases were collected. With this material, key events were inductively identified as phases in which the volume of thematically relevant articles increases significantly. The key events determined in this way then serve as a criterion for sampling the user-generated communication. This was followed by the manual content analysis of the verbally and visually manifested frames in the corpus of the press releases and in the corpus of the user-generated communications.
In the next step, the discourse connections between the two corpora were explored over time. In a country comparison, the similarities and differences in the interpretations of and discourses about big data were discussed comparatively.
The project delivered the following three results:
First: Determination of the domain-specific repertoire of media frames around big data. It takes into account their multimodal, text and image comprehensive constitution in professional and participatory forms of communication.
Second: Reconstruction of the discursive processes of interpretation into new types of data volumes and data-based processes. It tracks the development of the topic over time.
Third: Elaboration of cross-country specifics and similarities in dealing with big data. The comparative analysis thus deepens the understanding of the developing social preoccupation with the diffuse field of action big data and the interpretation of the processes, prerequisites, consequences and responsibilities associated with it.
At the end of the project, the international conference "Big Data Discourses" took place on February 1 and 2, 2024. The conference focused on the media framing of big data. The aim was to clarify in which publics and by which actors the topic is discussed, which forms of data use and data aggregation are addressed and how the discourse on big data is reflected in political decisions.
The conference program can be found on the conference homepage and in the Book of Abstract. The conference proceedings will be published in spring 2025.
The study investigated the discursive negotiation processes and the news frames on Big Data by way of a content analysis. The press articles from three countries are examined, which are: Germany, U.S., and South Africa. The period of analysis was January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2020.
The following articles have already been published:
Knorr, C., Wolter, M., & Pentzold, C. (2024). Whistleblower Memoirs: Deconstructing Data Consultants’ Insider Stories. Social Media + Society, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231224730
Pentzold, C., & Knorr, C. (2023). When data became big: revisiting the rise of an obsolete keyword. Information, Communication & Society, 27(3), 600–617. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2227673
Codebook
You can download the codebook here.
Variable Contributions
Knorr, C., Pentzold, C., & Hallmann, T. (2024). Press Sections in Online Newspapers (Formats and Genre). DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.34778/2zx
Knorr, C., & Pentzold, C. (2024). Framing Devices. DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.34778/2zy
Knorr, C., & Pentzold, C. (2024). Cultural motifs (Framing). DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.34778/2zz
Knorr, C., & Pentzold, C. (2024). Causal Attributions (Framing). DOCA - Database of Variables for Content Analysis, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.34778/2zaa
The project was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)