Kicking off the new term, we are excited to invite Dr. Jennifer Pybus from Digital Humanities at King's College to reignite our Rethinking Politics in Data Times seminar series!
Trump, the First Facebook President: Why Politicians Need Our Data Too
One March 12, 2017, Tim Berners-Lee, marked the 28th year since the inception of the Worldwide Web with three collective challenges: 1) The loss of control of our personal data, 2) the concentration of ownership and algorithmic practices which are facilitating the intensification and spread of misinformation and 3) the need for more accountability and regulation around political advertising. When all of these concerns are taken together, a new challenge emerges: the intensification of personalised economies, predicated on the content silos we increasingly operate within on digital platforms. The talk will therefore consider how advertising platforms like Facebook or companies like Cambridge Analytica, leveraged vast amounts of data to produce granulated, psychographic profiles that matched American voters with targeted political messages in the recent Trump elections. In so doing, we will discuss how datafication should not be uniquely understood as an economic process but equally, as a means to garner political influence, raising important questions around the myriad ways in which political parties are now using our data to reach their potential voters.
Biography:
Dr. Jennifer Pybus is a Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at King’s College London. Her research focuses on the diverse ways in which our digital lives are being datafied, turned into social big data that fuels our increasingly personalised, data intensive economy. Her current research is looking at the politics of datafication and everyday life, specifically in relation to those critical points of tension that lie at the intersections between digital culture, Big Data and emerging advertising and marketing practices. Part of this work focuses on the political economy of social media platforms, display ad economies, the analytics of search engine optimization and the rise of new sites wherein data can be exchanged for value, particularly within the mobile ecosystem.
When: Monday, January 15th 2018, at 5pm.
Where: Founders Building, Room FW101, Royal Holloway University, Egham.
All the seminar series events are live-tweeted, Join us for the debate -> #RethinkingPoliticsData
We will also have recap blogs and podcasts with the speakers so stay tuned!
Entry is free of charge and we look forward to thinking and debating with you about the future of politics in data times - All welcome!