A presentation on society, technology and media in a networked age, delivered at the 2014 Datafest in Buenos Aires.

1. @digiphile
e-PluribusUnum.com

2. Towards a More Open World

3. A networked public sphere

4. The
stream

5. Open Journalism

6. Natural
Disasters

7. #Sidibouzid

8. Networked protests

10. How did we get here?

11. In the 1990s, governments and civil
society spread the Internet globally

12. In the 2000s, mobile phones and social
networking connected us ever more

13. In the 2010s, “big data” is changing
how we understand ourworld.
“

14. Smarter Cities + Internet of Things

15. Image Credit: Real Time Rome from Senseable.MIT.edu

16. What is the
power of
open?

17. Open source software

18. Open Mapping

19. Platforms for citizens to self-organize
Image Credit: ITO World

20. Open Access

21. Open Design

22. Open Innovation

23. Crowdsourcing?

24. A long(itude) history of contests and
challenges
24

26. Top Coder

27. Solar Flares and Innocentive

28. Citizensourcing

29. Open Data
Graphic Credit: Justin Grimes

32. Open data enables citizens and media to
be generative in new ways

33. Hundreds of apps use or are
based on open health data

34. Personal data ownership

35. Keeping citizens safe
“Traffic on the NYC Health Department’s
restaurant inspection site has gone from
10,000 hits per month to 124,000”
- New York Times

37. Make data find the people.

39. “Fauxpen Data”
Beware openwashing
Evaluate licenses.
Check Terms of Service.
Check format, password protection

41. Mistake: Focus only on “apps”

42. Newspapers have
used data for centuries
Source: The Guardian

43. Chicago Tribune
• Flame retardants

44. Traditional tools applying tech to
journalism…
• Calculators and Graphs
• Mainframe and PCs
• Spreadsheets
• Databases
• Text and code editors
• Statistics
• Programming

45. …combined with new tools & context…
• Online spreadsheets and wikis
• Data visualization tools
• Open source frameworks
• Code sharing
• Agile development
• Cloud storage and processing (EC2 & Heroku)
• More data and more access
• Privacy and security riskss

47. 2014: data journalism is the present
Gathering, cleaning, organizing, analyzing,
visualizing and publishing data to support
the creation of acts of journalism

48. Los Angeles Times

49. Trendy but not new
• The collection, protection and
interrogation of data as a source,
complementing traditional “shoe
leather” investigative reporting relying
on witnesses, experts and authorities

50. A tangled web

54. Center for Public Integrity

55. Emerging trends

56. geojournalism

57. Networked reporting of corruption
ICIJ: Offshore Leaks

58. International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists
Offshoring $
80 journalists
40 countries
260 gigabytes
2.5 million files

59. Reuters: Connected China

60. Create your data
“If Stage 1 of data journalism was “find and
scrape data,” then…
Stage 2 was “ask government agencies to
release data” in easy to use formats.
Stage 3 is going to be “make your own data”,
and those sources of data are going to be
automated and updated in real-time.”
-Javaun Moradi, Mozilla

61. Safecast
open source
Geiger counter

62. Networked accountability

63. Bus route in Nairobi, Kenya

64. Sensor Journalism

67. Citizens as Sensors: Andhra Pradesh

68. Drones + data collection

69. Privacy
challenges

70. Be aware of de-anonymization risks

71. Accountability for “personalized redlining”
• Gun map graphic

72. Transparency for geographic profiling
• Gun map graphic
WSJ: Websites vary prices, based upon user information

73. Monitoring predictive policing
• Gun map graphic
Verge: Chicago crime and profiling Geekwire: Predictive Policing

74. Investigating human tissue trafficking
• Gun map graphic
ICIJ: The data behind skin and bone

75. Data + journalism + activism +
responsive institutions = social change

76. The fun part: predictions,
prognostications and
recommendations!

77. Data will become even more of a
strategic resource for media.

78. Better tools will emerge that
democratize data skills.

79. News apps will explode as a primary way
people consume data journalism.

80. Being digital first means being data-centric
and mobile-friendly.

81. Expect more robo-journalism. Human
relationships and storytelling still matter.

82. There will be higher standards for
accuracy and corrections.
Source: Jake Harris

83. Competency in security and data
protection will become more important.
Source: Jake Harris

84. Demand for more transparency on reader
data collection and use.
Source: eConsultancy

85. More conflicts over public records, data
scraping, and ethics will arise.
• Gun map graphic

86. The future is mobile.
In 2010, 82% of
Americans have a
cellphone.
60% of American
adults go online
wirelessly.
Source: Pew
Internet

87. Data-driven personalization and
predictive news in wearables.

88. We’ll need better filter/browsers
Image credit: PC World on Aurora

89. More diverse newsrooms will
produce better (data) journalism.
A 2013 ASNE survey of 68 online news organizations
found that 63% of them had no minorities.
SOURCE: The Atlantic

90. Data illiteracy is leading to
a new data divide.
Risk: open data empowers
the empowered.
Illustration: Brock Davis

91. Transparency is not enough
• “For adaptable data to engender
accountability, it must fulfill at
least two conditions: publicity
and political agency” – Tiago
Peixoto

92. Be mindful of data-ism and bad data.
Embrace skepticism.