ARTS3091 - Wk6 - Data empowerment

DATA

What is data exactly? Data according to media analysts is a collective amount of raw unprocessed information which could be manipulated and distributed in a number of different ways depending on the coder (Business Dictionary 2013).

What's interesting about this is that this so called position as the coder, the person who uses this data to create useful tables like statistical information, charts and pictograms has shifted from an elite amount of people to virtually anyone with a working computer. Excel and other softwares and programs have allowed everyday users to wrangle data into anything they want it to be. And what's more, data has become democratised in a way that anyone can access it.

There are still many different forms of data which the public could not access and this forms of data are most likely commercially traded to other businesses such as supermarkets to create large marketing campaigns against the public. This is a form of data privacy in which the public has no control over which could basically lead on to issues like internet piracy and such.

I see data as something which is quite useful, I remember a few years ago studying about the idea of visualising information onto different platforms and modes of media. Something as similar as an excel sheet could be easily transformed into charts. Why? It gives us different perspectives about what something might look like. A glass jar of jellybeans could easily fool someone into thinking that there are maybe less than a thousand of them, likewise this also happens when we look at tiring amounts of numbers.

This week one of the readings discussed the issue of climate change and how it is often argued that it doesn't exist simply because of a clash of different data types. I personally agree that climate change is happening and the way the writer explained it does have a fair few points which further corners skeptical scientists. For one, data having been processed through different models and systems and the fact that these models and systems have the potential to change and be replaced over the years by technology. It goes to show that we cannot argue about something looking back at its history when the data used has never been standardised.


Business Dictionary 2013, What is data?, accessed 13 April 2013, <http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/data.html>