Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates contemporary practices associated with the 'citizen scientific' culture, and how data (may they be qualitative or quantitative, individual or aggregated) collected and collated through these practices contribute to shaping today's data-saturated society.

Based on some case studies on 'citizen science' projects in relation to weather data, this paper looks into the types of data that are collected, collated and shared through different protocols and means, and how these data are governed, exploited, re-used, re-purposed and re-appropriated. The paper also examines the values that participants attach to such citizen science projects, their motivations for participating, and how their participation is facilitated. Through answering these questions, the growing interest from governments, the private sector, communities and individuals in 'citizen science' and 'big data' is placed under an infrastructural context (Star 1999; Star and Bowker 2010) where technological artefacts and services, and human knowledge, experiences, and actions are aligned and assembled to shape and challenge orthodox scientific agendas and cultures.

This paper will map the socio-technical practices to demonstrate how such a culture of DIY measurement in favour of the values of accuracy, instancy and completeness are facilitated and fulfilled through exploiting, generating and re-generating the values of big data.

Star, S. L. (1999). 'The Ethnography of Infrastructure'. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3): 377-391.

Star, S. L. and Bowker, G. C. (2010). 'How to infrastructure'. In L. A. Lievrouw and S. Livingstone (eds). Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences of ICTs. Sage.