Jonathan Gray

besea.n — This article builds on a collaboration on East and Southeast Asians: Documenting a Category in the Making with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick, City, University of London, the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, ESEA Hub and the Public Data Lab.

globalwitness.org — We sought to answer the following questions: When did the notion of NBS first appear online? Who, corporate or otherwise, uses it the most? Has there been an evolution in who uses it, when they use it and where? And, importantly: what can we learn about the potential co-option of the term by looking at its origins and trajectory?

journalism.co.uk — Two authors talk about the journey of data reporting from a novelty discipline to an established field of journalism.

datajournalism.com — A case study examining how a team of researchers, journalists and students used digital recipes and data to delve into COVID-19 conspiracy content 02 September 2021 These collaborations draw on approaches that are documented in the new edition of the Data Journalism Handbook (in a section on "investigating data, platforms and algorithms") which two of us co-edited, as well as in the Public Data Lab's Field Guide to "Fake News".

openDemocracy — Labour’s proposals offer an invitation to radically rethink the role that digital infrastructures can play in addressing urgent societal issues.

Nieman Lab — By looking more closely at how fake news moves and mobilizes people, we can develop a richer picture of not only how much it circulates where, but also why it circulates and how it resonates amongst different publics.

openDemocracy — A new research report published today looks at the current state and future prospects of a global public database of corporate accounts.

Juncture - Institute for Public Policy Research — There are many social and political repercussions for how data is created and used in 21st-century collective life, says Jonathan Gray. Employed effectively, it could facilitate human flourishing, advance social progress and strengthen democracy. A reimagining of the politics of data is needed.

publicdomainreview.org — Three hundred years after the death of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and seven hundred years after the death of Ramon Llull, Jonathan Gray looks at how their early visions of computation and the "combinatorial art" speak to our own age of data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence.

blogs.lse.ac.uk — Contemporary data infrastructures have had transformative effects; not only on methods, technologies and standards relating to data but also on our social, political, economic and cultural worlds. Building on the open data movement’s successes in the opening and sharing of data sets, Jonathan Gray argues it is time for a broader conversation around the making and development of data infrastructures. Until we institute processes to ensure data infrastructures reflect the concerns of their various publics, we risk sustaining systems that are disengaged from, or even damaging towards, those they are intended to benefit.

The Guardian — The UK’s higher education institutions spend more than £180m on journal subscriptions every year. We need to come together and create a better system.

openDemocracy — Climate negotiations should happen in the open, and be accountable to citizens. We're starting to make sure they are...

openDemocracy — Vast data collection must be reshaped to suit progressive ends.

The Guardian — Students and staff call for a ‘new university’ movement with greater democratisation of higher education and transparency of finances.

The Guardian — On 21 February, thousands of transparency activists, software developers, designers, researchers, public servants, and civil society groups are gathering at more than 100 cities around the world for the fifth global Open Data Day. In political speeches and recent reports there has been a significant focus on the potential of open data for economic growth and public sector efficiency. But open data isn’t just all about silicon roundabouts and armchair auditors. Here are five reasons why open data matters for social justice and democratic accountability.

The Guardian — Opening up information about contracts is an essential step towards an evidence-based debate about UK public services.

openDemocracy — How do we know that the money we collectively give to our governments is being properly spent? We don't. A new campaign seeks to change that.

openDemocracy — David Cameron's lobbying bill exposes the hollowness of his muscular claims about cracking down on crony capitalism. Britain's democracy remains under corporate capture.

The Guardian — Intended to meet the needs of citizens, the movement has come to embody digital rather than political openness.

blogs.lse.ac.uk — Scholarship is not just about publication, but about interaction, interpretation, exchange, deliberation, discourse, debate, and controversy. Below is the transcript from Jonathan Gray 's talk at yesterday's conference which outlined how at odds the current system of academic publishing, commodification and reward is with the nature of scholarship.

Red Pepper (UK) — State and corporate interests have sought to crack down on the power to share information digitally. But could the new technologies point towards a more democratic model of creativity, asks Jonathan Gray

thejunket.org — In his À la recherche du temps perdu Marcel Proust writes of memories unfurling and unfolding like Japanese paper flowers suspended in water – from small seedlike bundles into fragile and exquisite miniature villages. Try as he might to control and artificially instigate the flow of reverie and trance into which he is so often plunged – whether from the confines of his cork-lined room or while he retraces his steps in the twilight hours – he finds that he must wait for the past to descend upon him.

The Guardian — Aspiring data journalists and civic data hackers should strive to cut back on data-driven hype and to cultivate a more critical literacy towards their subject matter

Violent Delights — Yesterday Google marked the 112th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges with this colourful sketch. The sketch alludes to his role as Director of the Argentinian National Public Library, his architectural literature, and - not least - his recurring fantasies of the all-encompassing archive, the total library: Everything would be in its blind volumes.