Stefaan Verhulst
Paper by Daniele Rama, Yelena Mejova, Michele Tizzoni, Kyriaki Kalimeri, and Ingmar Weber: “In the global move toward urbanization, making sure the people remaining in rural areas are not left behind in terms of development and policy considerations is a priority for governments worldwide. However, it is increasingly challenging to track important statistics concerning this sparse, geographically dispersed population, resulting in a lack of reliable, up-to-date data. In this study, we examine the usefulness of the Facebook Advertising platform, which offers a digital “census” of over two billions of its users, in measuring potential rural-urban inequalities.
We focus on Italy, a country where about 30% of the population lives in rural areas. First, we show that the population statistics that Facebook produces suffer from instability across time and incomplete coverage of sparsely populated municipalities. To overcome such limitation, we propose an alternative methodology for estimating Facebook Ads audiences that nearly triples the coverage of the rural municipalities from 19% to 55% and makes feasible fine-grained sub-population analysis. Using official national census data, we evaluate our approach and confirm known significant urban-rural divides in terms of educational attainment and income. Extending the analysis to Facebook-specific user “interests” and behaviors, we provide further insights on the divide, for instance, finding that rural areas show a higher interest in gambling. Notably, we find that the most predictive features of income in rural areas differ from those for urban centres, suggesting researchers need to consider a broader range of attributes when examining rural wellbeing. The findings of this study illustrate the necessity of improving existing tools and methodologies to include under-represented populations in digital demographic studies — the failure to do so could result in misleading observations, conclusions, and most importantly, policies….(More)”.
Paper by Sonia Royo, Vicente Pina and Jaime Garcia-Rayado: “This paper analyzes the award-winning e-participation initiative of the city council of Madrid, Decide Madrid, to identify the critical success factors and the main barriers that are conditioning its performance. An exploratory case study is used as a research technique, including desk research and semi-structured interviews. The analysis distinguishes contextual, organizational and individual level factors; it considers whether the factors or barriers are more related to the information and communication technology (ICT) component, public sector context or democratic participation; it also differentiates among the different stages of the development of the initiative. Results show that individual and organizational factors related to the public sector context and democratic participation are the most relevant success factors.
The high expectations of citizens explain the high levels of participation in the initial stages of Decide Madrid. However, the lack of transparency and poor functioning of some of its participatory activities (organizational factors related to the ICT and democratic dimensions) are negatively affecting its performance. The software created for this platform, Consul, has been adopted or it is in the process of being implemented in more than 100 institutions in 33 countries. Therefore, the findings of this research can potentially be useful to improve the performance and sustainability of e-participation platforms worldwide…(More)”.
Iqbal Dhaliwal, John Floretta & Sam Friedlander at SSIR: “…In its post-Nobel phase, one of J-PAL’s priorities is to unleash the treasure troves of big digital data in the hands of governments, nonprofits, and private firms. Primary data collection is by far the most time-, money-, and labor-intensive component of the vast majority of experiments that evaluate social policies. Randomized evaluations have been constrained by simple numbers: Some questions are just too big or expensive to answer. Leveraging administrative data has the potential to dramatically expand the types of questions we can ask and the experiments we can run, as well as implement quicker, less expensive, larger, and more reliable RCTs, an invaluable opportunity to scale up evidence-informed policymaking massively without dramatically increasing evaluation budgets.
Although administrative data hasn’t always been of the highest quality, recent advances have significantly increased the reliability and accuracy of GPS coordinates, biometrics, and digital methods of collection. But despite good intentions, many implementers—governments, businesses, and big NGOs—aren’t currently using the data they already collect on program participants and outcomes to improve anti-poverty programs and policies. This may be because they aren’t aware of its potential, don’t have the in-house technical capacity necessary to create use and privacy guidelines or analyze the data, or don’t have established partnerships with researchers who can collaborate to design innovative programs and run rigorous experiments to determine which are the most impactful.
At J-PAL, we are leveraging this opportunity through a new global research initiative we are calling the “Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action” Initiative (IDEA). IDEA supports implementers to make their administrative data accessible, analyze it to improve decision-making, and partner with researchers in using this data to design innovative programs, evaluate impact through RCTs, and scale up successful ideas. IDEA will also build the capacity of governments and NGOs to conduct these types of activities with their own data in the future….(More)”.
Report by Chatham House: “There is a widespread sense that liberal democracy is in crisis, but little consensus exists on the specific nature and causes of the crisis. In particular, there are three prisms through which the crisis is usually seen: the rise of ‘populism’, ‘democratic deconsolidation’, and a ‘hollowing out’ of democracy. Each reflects normative assumptions about democracy.
The exact role of digital technology in the crisis is disputed. Despite the widely held perception that social media is undermining democracy, the evidence for this is limited. Over the longer term, the further development of digital technology could undermine the fundamental preconditions for democracy – though the pace and breadth of technological change make predictions about its future impact difficult.
Democracy functions in different ways in different European countries, with political systems on the continent ranging from ‘majoritarian democracies’ such as the UK to ‘consensual democracies’ such as Belgium and Switzerland. However, no type seems to be immune from the crisis. The political systems of EU member states also interact in diverse ways with the EU’s own structure, which is problematic for representative democracy as conventionally understood, but difficult to reform.
Political parties, central to the model of representative democracy that emerged in the late 18th century, have long seemed to be in decline. Recently there have been some signs of a reversal of this trend, with the emergence of parties that have used digital technology in innovative ways to reconnect with citizens. Traditional parties can learn from these new ‘digital parties’.
Recent years have also seen a proliferation of experiments in direct and deliberative democracy. There is a need for more experimentation in these alternative forms of democracy, and for further evaluation of how they can be integrated into the existing institutions and processes of representative democracy at the local, regional, national and EU levels.
We should not think of democracy in a static way – that is, as a system that can be perfected once and for all and then simply maintained and defended against threats. Democracy has continually evolved and now needs to evolve further. The solution to the crisis will not be to attempt to limit democracy in response to pressure from ‘populism’ but to deepen it further as part of a ‘democratization of democracy’….(More)”.
Michael A. Johansson & Daniela Saderi in Nature: “The public call for rapid sharing of research data relevant to the COVID-19 outbreak (see go.nature.com/2t1lyp6) is driving an unprecedented surge in (unrefereed) preprints. To help pinpoint the most important research, we have launched Outbreak Science Rapid PREreview, with support from the London-based charity Wellcome. This is an open-source platform for rapid review of preprints related to emerging outbreaks (see https://outbreaksci.prereview.org).
These reviews comprise responses to short, yes-or-no questions, with optional commenting. The questions are designed to capture structured, high-level input on the importance and quality of the research, which can be aggregated across several reviews. Scientists who have ORCID IDs can submit their reviews as they read the preprints (currently limited to the medRxiv, bioRxiv and arXiv repositories). The reviews are open and can be submitted anonymously.
Outbreaks of pathogens such as the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that is responsible for COVID-19 move fast and can affect anyone. Research to support outbreak response needs to be fast and open, too, as do mechanisms to review outbreak-related research. Help other scientists, as well as the media, journals and public-health officials, to find the most important COVID-19 preprints now….(More)”.
Paper by Lauren Henry Scholz: “Generalist confusion about the technology behind complex algorithms has led to inconsistent case law for algorithmic contracts. Case law explicitly grounded in the principle that algorithms are constructive agents for the companies they serve would provide a clear basis for enforceability of algorithmic contracts that is both principled from a technological perspective and is readily intelligible and able to be applied by generalists….(More)”.
Paper by Shweta Suran, Vishwajeet Pattanaik, and Dirk Draheim: “Over the last few years, Collective Intelligence (CI) platforms have become a vital resource for learning, problem solving, decision-making, and predictions. This rising interest in the topic has to led to the development of several models and frameworks available in published literature.
Unfortunately, most of these models are built around domain-specific requirements, i.e., they are often based on the intuitions of their domain experts and developers. This has created a gap in our knowledge in the theoretical foundations of CI systems and models, in general. In this article, we attempt to fill this gap by conducting a systematic review of CI models and frameworks, identified from a collection of 9,418 scholarly articles published since 2000. Eventually, we contribute by aggregating the available knowledge from 12 CI models into one novel framework and present a generic model that describes CI systems irrespective of their domains. We add to the previously available CI models by providing a more granular view of how different components of CI systems interact. We evaluate the proposed model by examining it with respect to six popular, ongoing CI initiatives available on the Web….(More)”.
About: “Welcome to CarDataFacts.eu! This website provides a fact-based overview on everything related to the sharing of vehicle-generated data with third parties. Through a series of educational infographics, this website answers the most common questions about access to car data in a clear and simple way.
CarDataFacts.eu also addresses consumer concerns about sharing data in a safe and a secure way, as well as explaining some of the complex and technical terminology surrounding the debate.
CarDataFacts.eu is brought to you by ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, which represents the 15 Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers….(More)”.
Abhishek Nagaraj and Scott Stern in the Journal of Economic Perspectives: “For centuries, maps have codified the extent of human geographic knowledge and shaped discovery and economic decision-making. Economists across many fields, including urban economics, public finance, political economy, and economic geography, have long employed maps, yet have largely abstracted away from exploring the economic determinants and consequences of maps as a subject of independent study. In this essay, we first review and unify recent literature in a variety of different fields that highlights the economic and social consequences of maps, along with an overview of the modern geospatial industry. We then outline our economic framework in which a given map is the result of economic choices around map data and designs, resulting in variations in private and social returns to mapmaking. We highlight five important economic and institutional factors shaping mapmakers’ data and design choices. Our essay ends by proposing that economists pay more attention to the endogeneity of mapmaking and the resulting consequences for economic and social welfare…(More)”.
Book by Arwid Lund and Mariano Zukerfeld: “This book tackles the concept of openness (as in open source software, open access and free culture), from a critical political economy perspective to consider its encroachment by capitalist corporations, but also how it advances radical alternatives to cognitive capitalism.
Drawing on four case studies, Corporate Capitalism’s Use of Openness will add to discussion on open source software, open access content platforms, open access publishing, and open university courses. These otherwise disparate cases share two fundamental features: informational capitalist corporations base their successful business models on unpaid productive activities, play, attention, knowledge and labour, and do so crucially by resorting to ideological uses of concepts such as “openness”, “communities” and “sharing”.
The authors present potential solutions and alternative regulations to counter these exploitative and alienating business models, and to foster digital knowledge commons, ranging from co-ops and commons-based peer production to state agencies’ platforms. Their research and findings will appeal to students, academics and activists around the world in fields such as sociology, economy, media and communication, library and information science, political sciences and technology studies….(More)”.