{"id":430,"date":"2021-10-05T08:54:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T08:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict21group10\/?p=430"},"modified":"2022-05-11T12:37:15","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T12:37:15","slug":"data-and-datafication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict21group10\/2021\/10\/05\/data-and-datafication\/","title":{"rendered":"Data and Datafication: A quick primer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a blog about data and datafication, it might be important to ask.<\/p>\n

What is data?<\/h3>\n

According to Wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n

data … are individual facts, statis\"Datatics, or items of information, often numeric, that are collected through observation. In a more technical sense, data are a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables about one or more persons or objects\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In short, data is information that has been or is being processed into knowledge that we can study and use. The type of information varies widely. In a macro sense, the information we collect can be about people, places, or things. If we zoom in though, we can see that data is often unstructured. This is because specialists and machines collect data from many different sources. As a whole, however, this data can give organisations a clear image of who we are.<\/p>\n

If we talk about people, it can tell us what a specific group of people feels or thinks relating about different topics. So, if we were to want to figure out how best to manoeuvre people\u2019s beliefs into voting for one party or another, data about said group would be the best place to start. Hence, the Cambridge Analytica scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, data is not solely meant to manipulate. Data can also allow us to learn about our world. It can teach us the way groups of animals behave, or why the sky looks blue to the naked eye. It can even help us cure diseases or find ways to avert them. Thus, data is everywhere, and what academics, scientists, afficionados, etc. do is collect, process, and analyse it.<\/p>\n

And Big Data?<\/h3>\n

Big Data is the area of data studies that systematically extracts and analyses big sets of data. In many cases, traditional software cannot process these data sets because they are too complex or large. As such, these data sets need specialised programs for us to collect and analyse them.<\/p>\n

Big data also has a few other characteristics that differentiate it from other data:<\/p>\n