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Datafied Citizens in the Age of Coerced Digital Participation

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  • Veronica Barassi

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between surveillance capitalism, big data, and the emergence of a new type of datafied citizenship by looking at two different, yet interconnected, dimensions. In the first place, it considers how under surveillance capitalism individuals are being profiled simultaneously as consumer and citizen subjects by a complex political economic infrastructure that brings private and public entities together. In the second place, it argues that surveillance capitalism depends on the systematic coercion of digital participation , which forces citizens to comply with data technologies and give up their personal data. If we want to understand the extent of these transformation, the article argues, we need to look at children. Children have traditionally been excluded from debates about citizenship because they have often been understood as not-yet citizens or future citizens. Yet, in the study of the relationship between data and citizenship, children today are the key. They are the very first generation of citizens who are datafied from before they are born and are coerced into digitally participating to society through the data traces produced, collected, and processed by others without their consent or control. Drawing on the findings of the Child | Data | Citizen project, an ethnographically informed research project on big data and family life in the UK and US, this article will highlight some of the democratic challenges that emerge when we think about data, surveillance capitalism, and citizenship in everyday life.

Suggested Citation

  • Veronica Barassi, 2019. "Datafied Citizens in the Age of Coerced Digital Participation," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 24(3), pages 414-429, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:24:y:2019:i:3:p:414-429
    DOI: 10.1177/1360780419857734
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Nick Couldry & Alison Powell, 2014. "Big data from the bottom up," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 57941, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Christopher Kelty & Aaron Panofsky & Morgan Currie & Roderic Crooks & Seth Erickson & Patricia Garcia & Michael Wartenbe & Stacy Wood, 2015. "Seven dimensions of contemporary participation disentangled," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(3), pages 474-488, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Yu Zhang & Hanyang Cao & Wang Zhang & Yating Wang, 2023. "How Digital Skills Influence on Digital Participation in China? The Mediating Roles of Online Interpersonal Communication and Online Immersion," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    2. Atabey, Ayça & Pothong, Kruakae & Livingstone, Sonia, 2023. "Glossary of terms relating to children’s digital lives," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119728, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Natalya KOSTKO & Mariya BATYREVA & Irina PECHERKINA & Oksana LAZAREVA, 2021. "Are Smart Technologies An Instrument Of Active City Dwellers?," Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 16(3), pages 73-91, August.
    4. Bindiya Dutt, 2023. "Wellbeing Amid Digital Risks: Implications of Digital Risks, Threats, and Scams on Users’ Wellbeing," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 355-366.
    5. Kaarina Nikunen & Sanna Valtonen, 2022. "Precariousness and Hope: Digital Everyday Life of the Undocumented Migrants Explored Through Collaborative Photography," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(2), pages 218-229.
    6. Mariya Stoilova & Sonia Livingstone & Rishita Nandagiri, 2020. "Digital by Default: Children’s Capacity to Understand and Manage Online Data and Privacy," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 197-207.

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