Perng, Sung-Yueh and Kitchin, Rob and Evans, Leighton (2016) Locative media and data-driven computing experiments. Big Data and Society, 3 (1). pp. 1-12. ISSN 2053-9517

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Abstract

Over the past two decades urban social life has undergone a rapid and pervasive geocoding, becoming mediated, augmented and anticipated by location-sensitive technologies and services that generate and utilise big, personal, locative data. The production of these data has prompted the development of exploratory data-driven computing experiments that seek to find ways to extract value and insight from them. These projects often start from the data, rather than from a question or theory, and try to imagine and identify their potential utility. In this paper, we explore the desires and mechanics of data-driven computing experiments. We demonstrate how both locative media data and computing experiments are \textquoteleftstaged\textquoteright to create new values and computing techniques, which in turn are used to try and derive possible futures that are ridden with unintended consequences. We argue that using computing experiments to imagine potential urban futures produces effects that often have little to do with creating new urban practices. Instead, these experiments promote Big Data science and the prospect that data produced for one purpose can be recast for another and act as alternative mechanisms of envisioning urban futures.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2016 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Keywords:	Data analytics; computing experiments; locative media; location-based social network; staging; urban future; critical data;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > National Institute for Regional and Spatial analysis, NIRSA
Item ID:	7279
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951716652161
Depositing User:	Prof. Rob Kitchin
Date Deposited:	24 Aug 2016 11:47
Journal or Publication Title:	Big Data and Society
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award
URI:	http://bds.sagepub.com
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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