Data journalism has many roles and responsibilities within society: it questions the past, present, and future states and processes of the world. Data journalism must use both the quantitative and qualitative methods of research to tell a holistic narrative. Its interdisciplinary nature allows people of various cultures, research and professional fields, ages, backgrounds, etc. to partner together in revealing and addressing the wrongdoings/ faults of various parties (no matter how “good” their intentions are). In Data Set Failures and Intersectional Data, Nikki Stevens exposes how traditional methods and corporate interests seeped through their OSC project, despite being “the first step in a project to create safer spaces within OSC for individuals from marginalized groups”. Other cases where data journalism uncovers the truth is shown in “One Size Fits Man”, where it’s revealed smartphones and pianos are built for the bodies of unmarked end users, usually that of the affluent white man.

It is responsible for being grounded in black feminist scholarship, disability justice, design justice, and queer theory. It is at the helm of empowering the public to think critically about the topic at hand and data ethics in general. Moreover, as mentioned in the podcast Becoming Data: Data and Humanity, data journalism fights against techno-chauvinism, the widespread concept coined by Meredith Broussard that states accelerated technology will save the world from all its problems. For instance, Lam Thuy Vo mentions how the current landscape of data collection of the most marginalized groups favors the deficit narrative. Lam provides a hypothetical example of a woman of color’s profile consisting of more “negative datasets” like records with law enforcement and child services than the “positive datasets” of measures she has taken to sustain her family’s well-being (e.g. maintaining the family finances).

It is the duty of data journalism to use visual storytelling and narratives to help the public more easily understand the context and key players, use stories of anonymous people’s experiences to connect with the public’s humanity. As demonstrated in the OSC paper, the processes/methods that made the data journalism projects possible must be open to the public, so that they can be challenged and/or replicated, so the field of data journalism progresses in the right direction. Furthermore, it should assist the public themselves to know and use their own power in holding entities accountable. 

This is a tangent, but I agree with what my colleagues have shared, that the government could provide funding to the programs (e.g. digital coalitions and libraries) focused on educating and uplifting the public in data literacy, so that people can understand and engage in various data journalism projects. Additionally, I think those of the public who have access to the Internet and privileges such as time, money, and holistic health are responsible for actively taking ownership of data being collected about them and going beyond raising awareness about the lack of missing data sets, which may protect vulnerable communities from being targeted or protect the NYPD from being held accountable for racial profiling.

Ever since I learned about Forensic Architecture, a multi-disciplinary research group that investigates human rights violations, in my Data, Culture, and Society course with Katherine Behar, I have appreciated their body of work, and I highly recommend you to check them out. 

Digital Violence: How the NSO Group Enables State Terror, is one of their self-initiated projects (https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/digital-violence-how-the-nso-group-enables-state-terror) supported by Amnesty International and The Citizen Lab. This undertaking provides the general public who have Internet access, researchers, and their legal team with “a general tool to explore relations among different types of NSO-related activities worldwide”. Forensic Architecture was initially motivated to start this project after having learnt that their close associates and past collaborators were hacked by Pegasus malware. They data-mined many human rights reports, legal documents, news articles from newspapers around the globe, and interviews with “investigators and dissenters, activists, journalists, and public figures targeted using Pegasus”.

Their project consists of an interactive digital platform built from D3 and WebGL, videos telling the stories of human rights defenders in at least 45 countries allegedly singled out by Pegasus narrated by Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, and “an interactive diagram and video presenting new research into the web of corporate affiliations within which the NSO Group is nested”.

Additionally, they commissioned Brian Eno to create Data Sonification, a sonic interpretation of the dataset. As the timeline slowly passes from 2010 to 2020, the horror of digital(one click success, one click attempt, zero click success, zero click attempt, network injection), contextual (related, exposure, and corporate), and physical (assassination, assault, intimidation, lawsuit, and Black Cube (which involves the threats coming from the private Israeli intelligence company named Black Cube) events is conveyed through synced dissonant, eerie sounds. I appreciate how expansive this data journalism project is and how Forensic Architecture is working directly with the community of human rights. This shows how people from various disciplines (e.g. art, architecture, activism, and data journalism) can collaborate to reveal corruption on a global scale whilst bringing these crimes to public attention.

I define “the public” as a single indefinite entity of humans that can mingle with other publics in complicated structures hard to untangle; it is a confusing thing, as human relationships are often messy. For example, I, as one out of many, wrestle with identifying with the individualistic American culture of “You do you” and “make your voice heard” versus the collective Asian-American culture of saving face and filial piety for our elders, as well the various millions of nuanced voices on the Internet. While it appears that we have freedom with the concept that we can explore infinitely with a click of the mouse, our decisions and behaviors are influenced by the society’s unspoken rules and limits, which we have internalized. 

According to Online Etymology Dictionary (https://www.etymonline.com/word/public), the origin of the word public is extensive, from its first definition as ‘”open to general observation” from Old French  public (c. 1300) and directly from Latin publicus “of the people; of the state; done for the state,”’.

“The commons”, depending on a specific public’s perspective, is seen as a tragedy, a solution, or a site for political and social contest. For example, the public of the elite rich may view the commons as a solution to their problems. Because it has been so difficult to manage the commons as a result of the existence of a multitude of publics, along with the disparity of resources, they can exploit the underregulation by going through loopholes with their abundance of time and money. 

Personally, I view “the commons” as a tragedy and a site for political and social contest. I agree with Hardin’s point of view in which the world has a finite amount of resources, and the human nature of prioritizing one’s own survival will harm many. For example, we are complicit in allowing Amazon to keep developing their AI with AWS machine learning, but at the expense of the hidden laborers who are underpaid, their bodies susceptible to unsafe workplace conditions and chemicals.  

Within the CUNY Graduate Center itself, there are many different publics with their own interests in mind. When we walk around these halls, we see paper handouts calling for the reclamation of the Commons – regarding the student taking back of the 8th floor Dining Commons from current bureaucratic regulations set by Graduate Center President Robin Garrell and others. This is the epitome of the commons being the site for political and social clashing. 

I recently visited the MoMA and came across Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler’s Anatomy of an AI System, (https://anatomyof.ai/) a data visualization that exposes the components that make a single Amazon Echo smart speaker possible. Before seeing this project, I was unaware of how many unnamed people were being exploited to conveniently bring a speaker onto one’s doorstep/mailbox. Such a visualization is an example of bringing awareness into the public’s consciousness, which is an important first step that Public Interest Technology was/is/will be working through.