Doctoral defence: Maris Männiste “Big data imaginaries of data pioneers: changed data relations and challenges to agency”

On 12 April at 14:00 Maris Männiste will defend her doctoral thesis “Big data imaginaries of data pioneers: changed data relations and challenges to agency” for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Media and Communication).

Supervisors: 
Associate Professor Anu Masso, Tallinn University of Technology, and University of Tartu
Professor Andra Siibak, University of Tartu

Opponent: 
Associate Professor Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Utrecht University (The Netherlands)

Summary
The use of big data is often portrayed both in the media and by practitioners as an opportunity, an increase in efficiency or an opportunity to better control certain processes in society. Data, especially big data, is often referred to as something mystical in these contexts. At the same time, there are always (data) experts behind the analysis based on big data, who play a major role in shaping and researching today's digital society. The aim of the dissertation "Big data imaginaries of data pioneers: changed data relations and challenges to agency" The aim of my thesis was to analyze how are the dominant big data imaginaries actualized and elaborated amongst data pioneers, how has this affected the scholarly practices and challenged the individual and collective agency. To achieve this goal, I interviewed the Estonian data experts, collected data by using a systematic review method as well as representative population survey data.

The results of the dissertation show that big data is mostly seen by data experts as a valuable resource that provides tools to improve governance through better and more efficient decision-making. Moreover, it is seen to provide an opportunity to better understand social processes and study human behavior. Data in the imagination of experts is also increasingly seen as commodity or capital, which is a significant competitive advantage for both private and public sector organizations. This thesis also brings out several barriers in relation to using and researching big data like the access to data, insufficient skills and knowledge to gather or analyze (big) data, lack of unified standards needed for sharing data between different parties, legal restrictions usually posed to protect the data subjects’ rights, technological affordances as well as changed data relations.