open data doesn't empower communities
Open data doesn't empower communities. I'm not saying open data is a bad thing, but we need to highlight the gap between the semantic web and social impact. Otherwise we'll continue to get swept along on a tide of technocratic enthusiasm where hope lies in 'a flood of data to create a data-literate citizenry'.
I'm inspired by the idea that nuggets of opened data could seed guerilla public services, plugging gaps left by government, but i don't see any of that in the data.gov.uk apps list. The reasons aren't technical but psychosocial - the people and communities who could use this data to help tackle their own disadvantage and marginalisation don't have the self-confident sense of entitlement that makes for successful civic hacktivism.
So why the big push behind open data and the lack of interest in enabling communities? i think the crude answer is 'bread and circuses'. And anyway, opening up data is a technocrat friendly activity whereas empowering communities is messy and difficult. So we'll continue to be told that we can improve public services and create future economic growth by linking data rather than tackling power.
There are many missing steps between open data & an empowered citizenry that can fulfill David Cameron's claim that “People will be the masters. Politicians the servants. And that’s the way it should be”. It might be useful to contrast the histories of libraries and of Chartism - libraries are a necessary platform for an informed citizenry, but it takes the channeled anger of a social movement to focus that in to historic change.
So which path leads beyond the sterility of SPARQL queries? Part of me says forget the whole thing. In a past life i helped collect data for the NHS, so i know that most government data is fake anyway (massaged beyond recognition as it passes upwards through the layered sphincters of bureaucracy). I'll keep an open mind to the results of the Open Data Impacts survey but i think we should sound the alarm that open data risks becoming (as Becky Hogge says) a kind of cargo cult.
The real struggle, as ever, is on the terrain of meanings. Who will write the narrative that we inhabit? And how much does data actually help here?
Adam Greenfield captures the issue in microcosm when comparing two local crime apps, Asborometer and SpotCrime NYC:
"In my talks and writing, I frequently argue that 'data' in and of itself is seductive, its dynamic visualization more so, and that we need to be very careful that we don’t get drawn into real-world decisions based on such visualizations without due reflection.... The distinction is between an abstract fear on the one hand, given apparent substance by its inscription in seemingly authoritative numbers, charts and graphs — and the actual texture of street crime on the other, in all its tawdry, banal and occasionally appalling isness. You’re likely to have much more of a sense of agency when confronted with particulars than you would against inchoate percentages. And agency, as far as I’m concerned, is the name of the game".
So either we dump data for narrative, or we 'queer' the data in the full knowledge of its limitations. I'm inspired in that by the counter-cartographies collective (3Cs) who say in their report from a Chicago community mapping workshop:
"One big point of discussion was how to deal with the embedded biopolitics behind data sources like US Census data that we use in our maps — as 3Cs, we often talk about how we ‘queer’ data or statistics by pulling map stories out of them that they weren’t intended for. But data sources often come so tightly bound up with state politics, white supremacist racial policies, definitions of family structure, etc., that queering them might require more conscious work than we always put in".
Open data is not a magic recipe for righting wrongs. What will move things on is the stories that communities tell about their situations and their possible futures. If open data has a part to play in this it will be through the bootstrap empowerment of projects like savvy chavvy, social startup labs and transition towns.
Comments
The link between open data and social impact
Dan, thanks for the great article and to start such a discussion. It reminds me of the essay "Against Transparency", where Lawrence Lessig wonders about the impact of transparency through open data. Transparency per se helps little if there is no reaction to it. A community or journalists are needed to make stories out of such open data efforts. The Asborometer is a great example to me where open data efforts lead to questionable results. Personally I find the application completely useless. Shall I start running when I enter an area, which has 90% of anti-social behavior. What does this figure really say? They surely stigmatize a certain district.
However I cannot follow completely your argument, because I believe we do not have yet enough projects, where open data and communities are combined. For example I started an initiative in Frankfurt, Germany called Create Frankfurt (blog post explaining the project), where we geo-referenced documents from local political decision of the district committee. Now citizens are alerted when topics in their street or neighbourhood are discussed. We hope that this supports citizen to connect each other for their own initiatives and mobilize them to engage in local politics. We plan to add further data. I believe such a combination can lead to a mobilisation of citizens. After three months we already had some interesting discussions and initiatives, which otherwise would not have happened.
Open Government Data != Open Data
I got here via Twitter and I was a bit irritated by this post because I expected a piece about open data in general. But with "open data" you seem to reference only open government data and you are not alone with that. I'm not d'accord with this use of the term "open data" and I'd like to make clear that open data is much much more than open government data!
Open data activities aren't limited to government data. Open data is/should be of great importance e.g. in science or in the library world (where I come from) as well as in other domains. And I think community building around open data in science or libraries isn't that big a problem because: Often these Communities already exist and they would immediately use, curate and benefit from open data in their domain. Of course, novel uses of this data by new acteurs would be possible and desirable as well. The difference with open government data might be that the envisioned community which is intended to use the data in the future isn't primarily the community which created and used the data in the past. Is that right?
I endorse to use "open data" as the general term under which open government data as well as open bibliographic data, open science data (wich again comprises open archaeology data etc.) and open data from other domains are subsumed. And I think this language use makes sense particularly if the open data movement (hopefully) will expand to more and more domains...
The Gap and Competition
Thank you for the great redux on this subject. Across the pond, we once had this catchy gun rights campaign with the phrase, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." Well, in this case, "Data don't fix society; people fix society." The latter is a bit less ludicrous than the former. I think you're right that data do not tell a story; people tell that story. The narrative can be drawn other than it would have been, though, turning what would otherwise be an OpEd into a series of -- for better or worse -- supported arguments. Data are empowering at that level, and they are empowering to everybody who has access to them. Either to point out a hypocritical flaw in data collection or support said argument. To some, this is mired process. To others, it's democracy.
But zoom out from the technologies (SPARQL, for instance) and note Hans Rosling's World Bank presentation last month (http://bit.ly/b3GBOX). In it, one of the most interesting points is that competition in Open Data is good, and that providing the watermark of your Open Data sources is tantamount. If there is no competition, there is no dialogue. And you wind up with ten white guys in a room deciding what the public has a right to know, and what version of the truth that will be. That is antithetical to this Open Data concept.
Zooming back in, what we have are disparate ecosystems and very few Open Data source points are doing their bit to empower developers. The App Tier, if you will, is filled with entrepreneurs and zealots. There is no Open Data API standard. There, I said it. What we have are great disparities where the API has serious limitations or doesn't even exist, in favor of, "Here's your CSV -- see, Open Data!" In the end, the data are no more open than they were ten minutes before publication, leaving a MUCH small pool of technicians to consume those data and ultimately expose them to the people. That is to say, expose the data for what they are.
What I've been trying to do in my very small sphere is encourage development of such an API. In the process, I've been struggling to sell the very idea of Open Data to local government, networking with peers in that process. Sometimes I walk away from meetings unconvinced. But when I hear back from organizations purportedly committed to transparency saying in effect, "We don't want to connect you with local governments. Those connections are proprietary," I am reaffirmed that any effort to foster dialogue on the subject is a Very Good Thing. So here I am, banging on doors. As loudly as possible. The more government at every level can hear, "This is why you need Open Data, and we have a group of volunteers willing to help," the more transparency becomes part of government culture, part of democracy, part of the larger narrative. That effort is worth it, the watermark is important, and Open Data as a movement still has promise.
Don't underestimate emergence
I completely agree, especially on the need to generate narratives. However, open data create a niche for people to do just that: look at the data and generate interpretation. We don't see them now, because there has been no space for them to act. The emergence of "data empowered narrators" is completely possible: and these, then, will empower the public at large. Thank you for sharing such a thoughtful opinion.
Drugs and data
Absolutely spot on. Nowhere is this clearer than with drug and alcohol use - particularly around the law. 'Data empowered narrators' narrate endlessly. Compelling data led proposals are made.
However your comment "the people and communities who could use this data to help tackle their own disadvantage and marginalisation don't have the self-confident sense of entitlement that makes for successful civic hacktivism" is a shivveringly cold truth across the globe at the moment.
The magic recipe for righting wrongs
>Open data is not a magic recipe for righting wrongs
It's way too early to pass any judgments on the open data movement, but this sentence is certainly true. The magic recipe is informed citizen involvement, and the lack of that won't be solved by data. Most citizens don't engage until there's a crisis and/or real or perceived problem. But the time to get involved most productively is well before that, before a problem: preventing a problem and doing actual good. It's possible that visualizations and open data growth will inspire certain people to get more involved. If that happens, that's not a magic recipe but it's darn good.
"Who will write the narrative
"Who will write the narrative we inhabit"
That's a powerful comment and one all of us who communicate on behalf of others (especially governments) should take seriously and as a solemn responsibility. I would say most do at this point, and yet others may not take this responsibility to heart yet. Or, more likely, those in charge are not allowing transparency. This is a reminder that communicators must not be mouthpieces, but who also must be truth tellers. A difficult balance for sure.
A very thoughtful piece.
beyond govt data
"so i know that most government data is fake anyway "
Do you see any prospect for showing up that fakeness in terms of internal consistency, or consistency with other datasets (from govt or beyond)?
Open Data is about show & tell
I agree that telling a compelling story is just as important as the data itself. But making data open lets you show rather than just tell. It lets you frame your narrative within the context of the reader by showing them how it affects their community and their needs.
The current crop of open data apps (including mine) are just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible. Dismissing open data as a platform for civic engagement now would be like dismissing social networking 5 years ago when it was just a bunch of kids on Friendster. Nowadays, almost every charitable cause imaginable has a presence on Facebook and in 5 years time I hope that we can say the same about the web of open data.
Open Data & Community Empowerment
I am finding it difficult to nail down your essential point due to the following conflations (which I think are more a reflection of what you've encountered while researching this article):
1. Open Data and Linked Data
2. Linked Data and SPARQL.
The ultimate impact of Open Data is that it achieves the following:
1. Puts an end to dysfunctional monopolies that have charged citizens for their own data while enriching a "connected few"
2. Reflects the changing colour of capital from "Green" to "Grey" -- we are in the information age so "Data is the new Electricity" .
Government globally are about creating the environment for their respective communities to blossom. Thus, in the information age it's critical for governments to ensure electricity flows in their respective economies. Once the electricity is following new industries and economic models will emerge (as they've done in the past).
New electricity for a new economic frontier trumps printing money as futile attempt to preserve the current system (which is totally broken due to lots of fissure points re. transparency).
Kingsley