Data discourse
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Data Discourse
Data Discourse
Definition of discourse
Discourse is applied to analyze literary and non-literary texts. Discourse is found in array of disciplines: critical theory, sociology, and other fields. Michel Foucalt's work has made important contributions to produce variety of theories for the term 'discourse'. It is helpful to think of discourse not as a group of signs or a stretch of text but as practices that systemically form the objects of which they speak (Foucault, 1972:49). Discourse is something which produces something else, rather than something which exists in and of itself and which can be examined in vacuum.
Data as discourse
Discourse works within the context of data
Examples of data discourse
The discourses of sharing, reuse, open access, open government, transparency, accountability, social entrepreneurship, and economies of scale have been mobilised to form a discursive regime that promotes investment in open data and associated repositories.
In relation to big data, the discourses of insight, wisdom, productivity, competitiveness, efficiency, effectiveness, utility, value have been mobilised to promote their adoption and usage.
Discursive regime
Data narratives and elements of data narratives
The discourses and imaginaries are put together to form data narratives to make stories about data and their interconnected assemblages persuasive. Data do not represent themselves. For data to be narrated, it must be set in specific settings for shape and meaning making.
The elements of data narratives are data trajectories, data temporalities, the cultural grounding of data narratives (Upon consultation with professor I will see if i should elaborate these concepts)
Data discourse theory and its overlap with other theories
Data imaginaries and discourses are drawn together to constitute what Focault (1977) termed a discursive regime: a set of interlocking arguments that justifies and sustains new developments and naturalises, legitimates and reproduces their use. The discourses utilised within a regime seek to promote and make their message seem like common sense, to persuade people and institution to their logic, and to believe and act in relation to this logic.