Annika Richterich

Using Transactional Big Data for Epidemiological Surveillance : Google Flu Trends and Ethical Implications of ‘Infodemiology’

This chapter provides a critique of methodological developments in influenza surveillance enabled by digital technology. While public health surveillance conventionally relies on data from clinical and virological diagnosis or mortality rate statistics, approaches in ‘infodemiology’ (Eysenbach, AMIA Ann Symp Proc 244–248, 2006) are based on big data retrieved from Internet sources. Such data indicating the health situation of a population are hence not biomedical data in a traditional sense, since the information may be derived from websites, newswires, or web search logs. After providing an overview of developments in epidemiological surveillance since the 1980s, the chapter discusses Google Flu Trends (GFT) as case study. GFT is an influenza-surveillance application based on web search logs. From November 2008 until August 2015, it was offered by Google Inc. as public ‘nowcasting’ service with continuous updates. The relevant data are still being collected and provided to selected research institutions, but they are merely presented in retrospect. GFT uses search queries as indicators of influenza-intensities. These queries may be related to a person’s medical condition, but they may as well be influenced by external factors such as news coverage. Moreover, the project is based on transactional big data which are exclusively available to Google Inc., and selected academic or governmental institutions. This chapter addresses the implications of such entanglements between public health services, emerging digital technology and corporate objectives. In order to highlight which norms and values are articulated through GFT and to discuss its ethical implications, the chapter employs a pragmatist approach (Keulartz, Sci Technol Hum Val 29(1):3–29, 2004).

Hacking events. Project development practices and technology use at hackathons

Hackathons are techno-creative events during which participants get together in a physical location. They may be hosted by civic communities, corporations or public institutions. Working individually or in teams, usually for several days, participants develop projects such as hardware or software prototypes. Based on a digital ethnography of two events in the Netherlands and Denmark, this article investigates project development practices at hackathons. In particular, it analyses how participants organized their project work and which technologies were used in support of their creative endeavours. Hackathons are increasingly competitive rather than collaborative events, involving time pressure, inducements such as prizes, and requiring efficient skills utilization. I argue that this facilitates the following tendencies: Firstly, strategic effort is put into final presentations. Projects need to be convincingly presented, and persuasively pitching an idea becomes crucial. Secondly, there is only limited time for personal learning, since participants’ existing skills need to be efficiently applied if a team wants to stay competitive. This encourages division of labour within groups: a tendency which seems especially problematic given that IT skills biases are often expressed in terms of gender. Thirdly, participants are more inclined to use technologies that are proprietary but appear ‘open enough’. In light of this observation and by drawing on the concept of technology as resource and opportunity, I discuss the techno-political implications of utilized technologies. With this analysis, I aim at contributing to the critical debate on hackathons as productive but likewise ideologically significant fields of ‘hacking cultures’.

Making and Hacking: Introduction

In August 2014, hackerspaces in the Netherlands issued an open letter to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (PPS): in this document, members of hacker communities from Amsterdam, Heerlen, Utrecht and other cities called upon the governmental institution to revise the definition of ‘hacking’ as presented on its website (Walboer et al. 2014). While the PPS described it as “breaking into computers without permission”, the hackerspace members highlighted that hacking refers to citizens’ creative engagement with technologies. Opposing the reduction of hacking to illegal activities, they described hacking as exploration of technological possibilities and boundaries in unforeseen, innovative ways. Even though this particular initiative was started in the Netherlands, the letter echoes wider, historical as well as ongoing negotiations regarding the meanings and origins of hacking. It seems closely related to earlier requests such as an open letter to the Wall Street Journal which was written more than 20 years ago by Richard Stallman (presumably). In this letter, the founder of the Free Software Foundation states:

A geology of media and a new materialism: Jussi Parikka in Conversation with Annika Richterich

Jussi Parikka’s research focuses on interrelations between technological culture, ecology and media aesthetics. He has published widely on media archaeology and material media cultures. In 2015, he published A Geology of Media which explores media studies as study of material (metallic, mineral, chemical) components. Bridging between the natural sciences, arts and environmental ethics, the media theorist explores analytic approaches which show how natural resources enable media and how media impact the earth’s ecosystem. His latest publication highlights the relevance and agency of the nonorganic as element in contemporary art, media studies and humanities. At the same time, it initiates a debate on the geophysical affordances of digital media. The email conversation with Jussi addresses core concepts and approaches suggested in A Geology of Media, and their implications for media studies and the humanities.