Jennifer Pybus
Biographic Data
| ID | 86879 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer Pybus |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer |
| FAMILY NAME | Pybus |
| SIGNATURE | PYBUS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1136-1237 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Extraction-by-design: Auditing infrastructures of datafication in baby-tracking apps
Millions of parents across Europe use mobile baby-tracking applications. These digital aides generate intimate data sets by accessing sensitive information about (un)born babies, pregnancies, and family caregiving routines. Crucially, the tracking infrastructures embedded in these apps enable what we call extraction-by-design, whereby routine caregiving inputs are captured, standardised, and repurposed for behavioural profiling and monetisation w…
Auditing the Closed Ios Ecosystem: Is There Potential for Large Language Model App Inspections
Scholarly attention is increasingly paid to the dynamic and embedded ways in which third-party tracking has become widespread in the mobile ecosystem. Much of this research has focused almost exclusively on Android applications in Google Play and their respective infrastructures of data capture, even though Apple and their App Store have a significant market share. To examine Apple’s ecosystem and to overcome the challenge of opening and inspecti…
Tracking menopause: An SDK Data Audit for intimate infrastructures of datafication with ChatGPT4o
This article presents a novel methodology to examine the tracking infrastructures that extend datafication across a sample of 14 menopause-related applications. The Software Development Kit (SDK) Data Audit is a mixed methodology that explores how personal data are accessed in apps using ChatGPT4o to account for how digital surveillance transpires via SDKs. Our research highlights that not all apps are equal amid ubiquitous datafication, with a d…
Super SDKs: Tracking personal data and platform monopolies in the mobile
In this article we address the question 'what is tracking in the mobile ecosystem' through a comprehensive overview of the Software Development Kit (SDK). Our research reveals a complex infrastructural role for these technical objects connecting end-user data with app developers, third parties and dominant advertising platforms like Google and Facebook. We present an innovative theoretical framework which we call a data monadology to foreground t…
Did you give permission? Datafication in the mobile ecosystem
Our article presents a finely granulated perspective on the technical objects of datafication. We contend that such cross-disciplinary focus provides a more rigorous material grounding for a critical analysis of the socio-cultural and political economic effects of mobile actors expanding and extending personal data economies. We propose a two-part hypothesis. First, that the mobile is enabling a more mature phase of datafication. Second, that thi…
The Material Conditions of Platforms: Monopolization Through Decentralization
In this article, we add research on technical integration and dependency to the theories of platformization. Our research seeks to understand how platforms have been able to technically integrate themselves into the fabric of the mobile ecosystem, transforming the economic dynamics that allow these largely enclosed entities to compete. We therefore want to consider platforms as service assemblages to account for the material ways in which they ha…
Hacking the social life of Big Data
This paper builds off the Our Data Ourselves research project, which examined ways of understanding and reclaiming the data that young people produce on smartphone devices. Here we explore the growing usage and centrality of mobiles in the lives of young people, questioning what data-making possibilities exist if users can either uncover and/or capture what data controllers such as Facebook monetize and share about themselves with third-parties. …
Social Networks and Cultural Workers: Towards an Archive for the Prosumer
The cultural worker is a key figure in social networks, producing the vast amounts of data which are integral to the profits sites of sites such as Facebook. This paper develops a conceptual framework that accounts for the contradictory ways in which user-generated data both extends networks of connectivity, while simultaneously renders subjects more productive within our information economy. By theorizing the digital profile as a personal archiv…
The Subjective Architects: When Tweens Learn to Immaterial Labor
The rapid rise of the tween, an influential market-constructed demographic of youth between the ages of 8 and 13, raises several questions. How and why did the tween emerge? How do we account for this downward trend in marketing and the corporate targeting of younger and younger children? And most importantly, for the purposes of my argument, what role has immaterial labor played in demarcating this new category of youth? Initially, Hardt and Neg…
Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation
Hacking the social life of Big Data
This paper builds off the Our Data Ourselves research project, which examined ways of understanding and reclaiming the data that young people produce on smartphone devices. Here we explore the growing usage and centrality of mobiles in the lives of young people, questioning what data-making possibilities exist if users can either uncover and/or capture what data controllers such as Facebook monetize and share about themselves with third-parties. …
The Material Conditions of Platforms: Monopolization Through Decentralization
In this article, we add research on technical integration and dependency to the theories of platformization. Our research seeks to understand how platforms have been able to technically integrate themselves into the fabric of the mobile ecosystem, transforming the economic dynamics that allow these largely enclosed entities to compete. We therefore want to consider platforms as service assemblages to account for the material ways in which they ha…
Super SDKs: Tracking personal data and platform monopolies in the mobile
In this article we address the question 'what is tracking in the mobile ecosystem' through a comprehensive overview of the Software Development Kit (SDK). Our research reveals a complex infrastructural role for these technical objects connecting end-user data with app developers, third parties and dominant advertising platforms like Google and Facebook. We present an innovative theoretical framework which we call a data monadology to foreground t…
Social Networks and Cultural Workers: Towards an Archive for the Prosumer
The cultural worker is a key figure in social networks, producing the vast amounts of data which are integral to the profits sites of sites such as Facebook. This paper develops a conceptual framework that accounts for the contradictory ways in which user-generated data both extends networks of connectivity, while simultaneously renders subjects more productive within our information economy. By theorizing the digital profile as a personal archiv…
The Subjective Architects: When Tweens Learn to Immaterial Labor
The rapid rise of the tween, an influential market-constructed demographic of youth between the ages of 8 and 13, raises several questions. How and why did the tween emerge? How do we account for this downward trend in marketing and the corporate targeting of younger and younger children? And most importantly, for the purposes of my argument, what role has immaterial labor played in demarcating this new category of youth? Initially, Hardt and Neg…
Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation
The Subjective Architects: When Tweens Learn to Immaterial Labor
The rapid rise of the tween, an influential market-constructed demographic of youth between the ages of 8 and 13, raises several questions. How and why did the tween emerge? How do we account for this downward trend in marketing and the corporate targeting of younger and younger children? And most importantly, for the purposes of my argument, what role has immaterial labor played in demarcating this new category of youth? Initially, Hardt and Neg…
Social Networks and Cultural Workers: Towards an Archive for the Prosumer
The cultural worker is a key figure in social networks, producing the vast amounts of data which are integral to the profits sites of sites such as Facebook. This paper develops a conceptual framework that accounts for the contradictory ways in which user-generated data both extends networks of connectivity, while simultaneously renders subjects more productive within our information economy. By theorizing the digital profile as a personal archiv…
Hacking the social life of Big Data
This paper builds off the Our Data Ourselves research project, which examined ways of understanding and reclaiming the data that young people produce on smartphone devices. Here we explore the growing usage and centrality of mobiles in the lives of young people, questioning what data-making possibilities exist if users can either uncover and/or capture what data controllers such as Facebook monetize and share about themselves with third-parties. …
The Material Conditions of Platforms: Monopolization Through Decentralization
In this article, we add research on technical integration and dependency to the theories of platformization. Our research seeks to understand how platforms have been able to technically integrate themselves into the fabric of the mobile ecosystem, transforming the economic dynamics that allow these largely enclosed entities to compete. We therefore want to consider platforms as service assemblages to account for the material ways in which they ha…
Did you give permission? Datafication in the mobile ecosystem
Our article presents a finely granulated perspective on the technical objects of datafication. We contend that such cross-disciplinary focus provides a more rigorous material grounding for a critical analysis of the socio-cultural and political economic effects of mobile actors expanding and extending personal data economies. We propose a two-part hypothesis. First, that the mobile is enabling a more mature phase of datafication. Second, that thi…
Super SDKs: Tracking personal data and platform monopolies in the mobile
In this article we address the question 'what is tracking in the mobile ecosystem' through a comprehensive overview of the Software Development Kit (SDK). Our research reveals a complex infrastructural role for these technical objects connecting end-user data with app developers, third parties and dominant advertising platforms like Google and Facebook. We present an innovative theoretical framework which we call a data monadology to foreground t…
Auditing the Closed Ios Ecosystem: Is There Potential for Large Language Model App Inspections
Scholarly attention is increasingly paid to the dynamic and embedded ways in which third-party tracking has become widespread in the mobile ecosystem. Much of this research has focused almost exclusively on Android applications in Google Play and their respective infrastructures of data capture, even though Apple and their App Store have a significant market share. To examine Apple’s ecosystem and to overcome the challenge of opening and inspecti…
Tracking menopause: An SDK Data Audit for intimate infrastructures of datafication with ChatGPT4o
This article presents a novel methodology to examine the tracking infrastructures that extend datafication across a sample of 14 menopause-related applications. The Software Development Kit (SDK) Data Audit is a mixed methodology that explores how personal data are accessed in apps using ChatGPT4o to account for how digital surveillance transpires via SDKs. Our research highlights that not all apps are equal amid ubiquitous datafication, with a d…
Extraction-by-design: Auditing infrastructures of datafication in baby-tracking apps
Millions of parents across Europe use mobile baby-tracking applications. These digital aides generate intimate data sets by accessing sensitive information about (un)born babies, pregnancies, and family caregiving routines. Crucially, the tracking infrastructures embedded in these apps enable what we call extraction-by-design, whereby routine caregiving inputs are captured, standardised, and repurposed for behavioural profiling and monetisation w…
Computer Science (8 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Social science (4 works) · Audit (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection (3 works) · Accounting (2 works) · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security (2 works) · Computer security (2 works)