I recently noted that datafication has a
Wikipedia article. This is another term for a phenomenon I usually speak
of as quantification,
following Ritzer and Rescher. I figured I should start keeping a list of
related terms and uses; if you’ve encounter a similar term, please leave
it in the comments. If nothing else, this could be used to improve the
Wikipedia articles.
For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of
calculability and utility must be viewed with
suspicion. (AdornoHorkheimer
1979, p. 3)
Calculability or quantity rather than quality: Quality is notoriously
difficult to evaluate. How do we assess the quality of a hamburger, or
physician, or a student? Instead of even trying, in an increasing number
of cases, a rational society seeks to develop a series of
quantifiable measures that it takes as surrogates for
quality. This urge to quantify has given great impetus to the
development of the computer and has, in turn, been spurred by the
widespread use and increasing sophistication of the computer. (Ritzer
1983, p. 103)
Synopsis: (1) Measurement is more than a matter of mere
quantification; only in special cases do quantities actually measure
something. (2) Quantification in and of itself is no
guarantor of objectivity. And actual measurements, though indeed
sufficient for objectivity, is certainly not necessary to it.
Objectivity, after all, does not require quantification. (Rescher 1997,
“Objectivity”, p. 75)
The Regime of Computation, then, provides a
narrative that accounts for the evolution of the universe, life, mind,
and mind reflecting on mind by connecting these emergences with
computational processes that operate both in human-created simulations
and in the universe understood as software running on the “Universal
Computer” we call reality. This is the larger context in which code
aquires special, indeed universal, significance. In the Regime of
Computation, code is understood as the discourse system that mirrors
what happens in nature and that generates nature itself. (Hayles 2005,
“My Mother Was a Computer”, p. 27)
This book is not about computers. It is instead about a set of
widespread contemporary beliefs about computers
[computationaism]—beliefs that can be hard to see as
such because of their ubiquity and because of the power of computers
themselves. More specifically, it is about the methods computers use to
operate, methods referred to generally as computation. Computation—as
metaphor, method, and organizing fram—occupies a privileged and
under-analyzed role in our culture. Influential new concepts often
emerge alongside technological shifts—they emerged alongside the shifts
to steam power, electricity, and television, for example (see, e.g.,
Marvin 1988). (Golumbia 2009, p. 1)
Given this massive scale, it is tempting to understand big data
solely in terms of size. But that would be misleading. Big data is also
characterized by the ability to render into data many aspects of the
world that have never been quantified before; call it
“datafication.” For example, location has been
datafied, first with the invention of longitude and latitude, and more
recently with GPS satellite systems. Words are treated as data when
computers mine centuries’ worth of books. Even friendships and “likes”
are datafied, via Facebook. (CukierMayer-Schoenberger2013rbd)
However compelling some examples of applied Big Data research, the
ideology of dataism shows characteristics of a
widespread belief in the objective quantification and potential tracking
of all kinds of human behavior and sociality through online media
technologies. Besides, dataism also involves trust in the
(institutional) agents that collect, interpret, and share (meta)data
culled from social media, internet platforms, and other communication
technologies. (VanDijk2014ddd, p. 198)
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