My latest paper, “Situated data analysis: a new method for analysing encoded power relationships in social media“, started out as an analysis of the data visualisations in Strava, but ended up as something more ambitious: a method that I think can be used to analyse all kinds of digital platform using personal data in different contexts. Here is a video teaser explaining the key points of situated data analysis:
This paper has been a long time in the works, and started off as part of the INDVIL project on data visualisations, where I was tasked with thinking about the epistemology of data visualisations. Working through revision after revision of my analyses of data visualisations in Strava I found that what really interested me about Strava was the many different ways that the personal data it collects from runners and cyclists are presented—or, more precisely, how the data are situated.