Jo Bates
Biographic Data
| ID | 3650432 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jo Bates |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jo |
| FAMILY NAME | Bates |
| SIGNATURE | BATES J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7266-8470 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Navigating the automation of the arts
AI-generated art has its roots in the 1960s, driven by pioneering artists experimenting with algorithmic and rule-based systems. In contrast, over the past decade, new AI art generators, fuelled by increased computing power, are often associated with extractive data practices spearheaded and monopolised by big tech companies. Both historical and contemporary approaches involve learning patterns from existing data to generate new content; however,…
Feeding the machine
This paper examines the human implications of AI's ‘data dilemma' in three different and contrasting sectors: pharmaceuticals, higher education, and the arts. The ‘data dilemma' refers to the challenge of obtaining sufficient and suitable data to effectively train AI algorithms. The research, conducted in the UK, involved interviews, focus groups, and observations with 65 practitioners employed across these three sectors. The findings reveal that…
What ifs
This paper explores how non-experts reflect on and come to understand ‘data uses’, a phrase we used to refer to data collection, analysis and sharing. In recent years, research into what people think and feel about data uses has proliferated, whereas this paper focuses on how they do their thinking and feeling. We argue that imagining – that is, building or creating a mental image of something that is not present – is an important aspect of refle…
Data saves lives’
In this paper, we bring together the concepts of data valences and data journeys to examine how ideational and material factors work together to shape the movement of health data from the UK healthcare sector to universities for reuse in research. Specifically, we focus on the interaction of university-based researchers’ constructs about data with the material conditions of health data circulation in the UK and how these dynamics drive greater ci…
How people connect fairness and equity when they talk about data uses
As a mechanism for addressing data-related harms, fairness has been subjected to considerable criticism, seen as failing to acknowledge the power relationships that produce said harms, or as a ‘floating signifier’ devoid of specific meaning. In contrast to fairness, it is argued that equity does a better job of recognising data-related harms. Criticisms such as these emerge in specific cultural contexts and rarely acknowledge everyday understandi…
Beliefs, Values and Emotions in Practitioners’ Engagements With Learning Analytics in Higher Education
Internet entrepreneurs, EdTech companies, AI enthusiasts, and other powerful stakeholders around the world have promoted the idea that big data and learning analytics (LA) have the potential to revolutionise education. LA, defined as the continuous measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their context (Gašević et al., 2015, p. 1), is increasingly being used to track and evaluate what students do in internet-medi…
State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism
This study explores the socio-political shaping of Chinese smart urbanism by examining the power relations between the government (national and municipal), private firms and citizens embedded in smartmentality. Our exploration begins with teasing out key analytical standpoints of Alberto Vanolo’s concept of smartmentality applied in neoliberal practices of smart urbanism. Through this analytical framework, we conceptualise Chinafied smartmentalit…
Making Data Flow for the Climate Risk Market
In 2011, the U.K. government announced that the national meteorological agency would be releasing a significant volume of data as part of its Open Data policy agenda. This article explores the interrelationship between this announcement and efforts to boost the competitiveness of the United Kingdom’s weather derivatives industry. Primary qualitative data are analyzed to produce a genealogical account of these policy developments, and Braman’s con…
Data Power in Material Contexts
This short piece introduces the special issue of Television & New Media (TVNM) on data power in material contexts, which brings together papers which analyze the operations of data power across a range of real-world domains. It highlights the increasing connectedness of digital data tracking, aggregation, and analytics across domains that include and move beyond media, as data are increasingly combined and shared across diverse digital spaces. Th…
Co-Observing the Weather, Co-Predicting the Climate
This paper investigates the embodied performance of ‘doing citizen science’. It examines how ‘citizen scientists’ produce scientif c data using the resources available to them, and how their socio-technical practices and emotions impact the construction of a crowdsourced data infrastructure. We found that conducting citizen science is highly emotional and experiential, but these individual experiences and feelings tend to get lost or become invis…
Data journeys
In this paper, we discuss the development and piloting of a new methodology for illuminating the socio-material constitution of data objects and flows as data move between different sites of practice. The data journeys approach contributes to the development of critical, qualitative methodologies that can address the geographic and temporal scale of emerging knowledge infrastructures, and capture the 'life of data' from their initial generation t…
The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state
Data journeys
In this paper, we discuss the development and piloting of a new methodology for illuminating the socio-material constitution of data objects and flows as data move between different sites of practice. The data journeys approach contributes to the development of critical, qualitative methodologies that can address the geographic and temporal scale of emerging knowledge infrastructures, and capture the 'life of data' from their initial generation t…
The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state
State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism
This study explores the socio-political shaping of Chinese smart urbanism by examining the power relations between the government (national and municipal), private firms and citizens embedded in smartmentality. Our exploration begins with teasing out key analytical standpoints of Alberto Vanolo’s concept of smartmentality applied in neoliberal practices of smart urbanism. Through this analytical framework, we conceptualise Chinafied smartmentalit…
Data Power in Material Contexts
This short piece introduces the special issue of Television & New Media (TVNM) on data power in material contexts, which brings together papers which analyze the operations of data power across a range of real-world domains. It highlights the increasing connectedness of digital data tracking, aggregation, and analytics across domains that include and move beyond media, as data are increasingly combined and shared across diverse digital spaces. Th…
The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state
Co-Observing the Weather, Co-Predicting the Climate
This paper investigates the embodied performance of ‘doing citizen science’. It examines how ‘citizen scientists’ produce scientif c data using the resources available to them, and how their socio-technical practices and emotions impact the construction of a crowdsourced data infrastructure. We found that conducting citizen science is highly emotional and experiential, but these individual experiences and feelings tend to get lost or become invis…
Data journeys
In this paper, we discuss the development and piloting of a new methodology for illuminating the socio-material constitution of data objects and flows as data move between different sites of practice. The data journeys approach contributes to the development of critical, qualitative methodologies that can address the geographic and temporal scale of emerging knowledge infrastructures, and capture the 'life of data' from their initial generation t…
Making Data Flow for the Climate Risk Market
In 2011, the U.K. government announced that the national meteorological agency would be releasing a significant volume of data as part of its Open Data policy agenda. This article explores the interrelationship between this announcement and efforts to boost the competitiveness of the United Kingdom’s weather derivatives industry. Primary qualitative data are analyzed to produce a genealogical account of these policy developments, and Braman’s con…
Data Power in Material Contexts
This short piece introduces the special issue of Television & New Media (TVNM) on data power in material contexts, which brings together papers which analyze the operations of data power across a range of real-world domains. It highlights the increasing connectedness of digital data tracking, aggregation, and analytics across domains that include and move beyond media, as data are increasingly combined and shared across diverse digital spaces. Th…
State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism
This study explores the socio-political shaping of Chinese smart urbanism by examining the power relations between the government (national and municipal), private firms and citizens embedded in smartmentality. Our exploration begins with teasing out key analytical standpoints of Alberto Vanolo’s concept of smartmentality applied in neoliberal practices of smart urbanism. Through this analytical framework, we conceptualise Chinafied smartmentalit…
Beliefs, Values and Emotions in Practitioners’ Engagements With Learning Analytics in Higher Education
Internet entrepreneurs, EdTech companies, AI enthusiasts, and other powerful stakeholders around the world have promoted the idea that big data and learning analytics (LA) have the potential to revolutionise education. LA, defined as the continuous measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their context (Gašević et al., 2015, p. 1), is increasingly being used to track and evaluate what students do in internet-medi…
What ifs
This paper explores how non-experts reflect on and come to understand ‘data uses’, a phrase we used to refer to data collection, analysis and sharing. In recent years, research into what people think and feel about data uses has proliferated, whereas this paper focuses on how they do their thinking and feeling. We argue that imagining – that is, building or creating a mental image of something that is not present – is an important aspect of refle…
Data saves lives’
In this paper, we bring together the concepts of data valences and data journeys to examine how ideational and material factors work together to shape the movement of health data from the UK healthcare sector to universities for reuse in research. Specifically, we focus on the interaction of university-based researchers’ constructs about data with the material conditions of health data circulation in the UK and how these dynamics drive greater ci…
How people connect fairness and equity when they talk about data uses
As a mechanism for addressing data-related harms, fairness has been subjected to considerable criticism, seen as failing to acknowledge the power relationships that produce said harms, or as a ‘floating signifier’ devoid of specific meaning. In contrast to fairness, it is argued that equity does a better job of recognising data-related harms. Criticisms such as these emerge in specific cultural contexts and rarely acknowledge everyday understandi…
Feeding the machine
This paper examines the human implications of AI's ‘data dilemma' in three different and contrasting sectors: pharmaceuticals, higher education, and the arts. The ‘data dilemma' refers to the challenge of obtaining sufficient and suitable data to effectively train AI algorithms. The research, conducted in the UK, involved interviews, focus groups, and observations with 65 practitioners employed across these three sectors. The findings reveal that…
Navigating the automation of the arts
AI-generated art has its roots in the 1960s, driven by pioneering artists experimenting with algorithmic and rule-based systems. In contrast, over the past decade, new AI art generators, fuelled by increased computing power, are often associated with extractive data practices spearheaded and monopolised by big tech companies. Both historical and contemporary approaches involve learning patterns from existing data to generate new content; however,…
Political science (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Data science (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI (3 works) · Government (linguistics (3 works) · Information Systems Theories and Implementation (3 works) · Law (3 works)