Professor Jo Bates
BA (Keele), MA (Nottingham), MA (Manchester Metropolitan), PhD (Manchester Metropolitan)
School of Information, Journalism and Communication
Professor of Data and Society
Full contact details
School of Information, Journalism and Communication
Room C223
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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My academic background is in Politics and American Studies, which I studied before training to be a librarian and from there developing my academic career in data studies. I joined the Information School at Sheffield as a lecturer in 2012, shortly before completing my PhD on the politics of Open Government Data in the UK.
More recently, my research has explored cultures of data science practice; the social, cultural and political economic shaping of data flows – particularly climate data flows; and labour issues in crowdwork platforms. I have received a range of funding to work on these topics, including two AHRC grants as PI (Secret Life of a Weather Datum 2014-15 and Patterns in Practice 2021-24). My 2017 paper on ‘Data Friction’ published in Journal of Documentation was awarded a highly commended Emerald Literati Award.
I have been co-organiser of the international Data Power conference since it began in 2015, and I am currently part of the conference management team. I am also on the Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Big Data and Society and a member of the AHRC’s Peer Review College.
My research interests inform my teaching practice. Over recent years, I have led efforts to embed data politics and ethics teaching into the Information School’s Data Science degrees, and led research on this topic that I presented at ACM FAccT 2020.
You can find out more about my work on my website: lifeofdata.org
University responsibilities
- Information School REF Co-ordinator
- Head of Digital Societies Research Group
- Research interests
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My research is in the field of Critical Data Studies. Critical Data Studies is an interdisciplinary field that uses critical social theory to examine the social drivers, implications and power relations of emergent forms of data and algorithmic practices.
My recent research broadly breaks down into four thematic areas: data cultures, data journeys & friction, climate and environmental data, and digital labour. You can read more about my research in each of these areas on my website.
I am currently working on the following projects, which involve collaborations with a variety of organisations including GSK, JISC, BBC and DWP:
- Patterns in Practice (Principal Investigator). AHRC funded. https://lifeofdata.org/site/patterns-in-practice/
- Living with Data (Co-investigator). Nuffield funded. https://livingwithdata.org/current-research/
- Climate data-sharing scoping study (PI). Internally funded.
I am interested in supervising PhD projects that advance the critical study of emerging data and algorithmic practices and flows. By critical I mean projects that in some way grapple with issues of power, ethics and justice as they relate to topics of data, automation, data science and AI. I tend to use qualitative research methods, including ethnographic methods and (policy) document analysis. There is a wide range of potential projects in this area. Applicants are advised to check out recent papers in key journals such as Big Data and Society to get a sense for emerging topics.
- Publications
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Show: Featured publications All publications
Featured publications
- Edited books
- Journal articles
- Chapters
- Conference proceedings papers
- Reports
- Website content
- Theses / Dissertations
- Working papers
Edited books
- Dialogues in Data Power: Shifting response-abilities in a datafied world. Bristol University Press.
Journal articles
- What ifs: the role of imagining in people's reflections on data uses. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 30(6), 2025-2041. View this article in WRRO
- ‘Data saves lives’: ideational-material drivers of health data journeys in the UK. Big Data & Society, 11(4). View this article in WRRO
- Socially meaningful transparency in data-based systems: reflections and proposals from practice. Journal of Documentation.
- Addressing labour exploitation in the data science pipeline: views of precarious US-based crowdworkers on adversarial and co-operative interventions. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 21(3), 342-357.
- State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism. Urban Studies, 59(14), 2933-2950.
- Guest editorial : special section on “social and cultural biases in information, algorithms, and systems”. Online Information Review, 44(2), 321-323.
- Adversarial Attacks on Crowdsourcing Quality Control. The Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 67(2020), 375-408.
- Introduction to the data power special issue : tactics, access and shaping. Online Information Review, 43(6), 945-951.
- Assembling an infrastructure for historic climate data recovery: data friction in practice. Journal of Documentation, 75(4), 791-806.
- Data Power in Material Contexts: Introduction. Television and New Media, 18(8), 701-705.
- Making data flow for the climate risk market. Television and New Media, 18(8), 753-768.
- The politics of data friction. Journal of Documentation, 74(2), 412-429.
- Data journeys: Capturing the socio-material constitution of data objects and flows. Big Data & Society, 3(2), 205395171665450-205395171665450.
- Co-observing the Weather, Co-predicting the Climate: Human Factors in Building Infrastructures for Crowdsourced Data. Science and Technology Studies, 29(3).
- The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state: the case of Open Government Data in the United Kingdom. Government Information Quarterly, 31(3), 388-395.
- The domestication of open government data advocacy in the United Kingdom: A neo-Gramscian analysis. Policy and Internet, 5(1), 118-137.
- “This is what modern deregulation looks like” : co-optation and contestation in the shaping of the UK’s Open Government Data Initiative. Journal of Community Informatics, 8(2).
- Social reproduction and exclusion in subject indexing: A comparison of public library OPACs and LibraryThing folksonomy. Journal of Documentation, 67(3), 431-448.
- How people connect fairness and equity when they talk about data uses. Big Data and Society. View this article in WRRO
Chapters
- Worker perspectives on designs for a crowdwork co-operative In Hepp A, Jarke J & Kramp L (Ed.), New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies : The Ambivalences of Data Power (pp. 415-443). Palgrave Macmillan
- Big data and data analytics In Elliott A (Ed.), The Routledge Social Science Handbook of AI Routledge
- Big data, open data and the climate risk market In Brevini B & Murdock G (Ed.), Carbon Capitalism and Communication (pp. 83-93). Palgrave Macmillan
- Data cultures, power and the city, Data and the City (pp. 189-200).
Conference proceedings papers
- Integrating FATE/critical data studies into data science curricula : where are we going and how do we get there?. FAT* '20: Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp 425-435). Barcelona, Spain, 27 January 2020 - 27 January 2020.
- Using data journeys to inform research design: Socio-cultural dynamics of patient data flows in the UK healthcare sector. iConference 2019 Proceedings
- Quality control attack schemes in crowdsourcing. Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (pp 6136-6140). Macao, 10 August 2019 - 10 August 2019.
- All That Glitters Is Gold - An Attack Scheme on Gold Questions in Crowdsourcing.. HCOMP (pp 2-11)
- Identifying the Affective Dimension of Data Mining Practice: An Exploratory Study. Transforming Digital Worlds (pp 243-252)
- Competent Men and Warm Women: Gender Stereotypes and Backlash in Image Search Results. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp 6620-6631). Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO, 6 May 2017 - 6 May 2017.
- Data Journeys as an approach for exploring the socio-cultural shaping of (big) data: the case of climate science in the United Kingdom. Iconference 2015 Proceedings (pp 1-16)
- Mapping Data Journeys: Design for an interactive web site. iConference 2015 Proceedings (pp 1-4)
- Information policy in the crises of neoliberalism: the case of Open Government Data in the UK. IAMCR 2013. Dublin
- Socio-Technical Transitions Pathways for UK Open Government Data. ACM Web Science 2013
- Building consent: strategy and power in the development of the United Kingdom’s Open Government Data initiative. International Political Science Association 22nd World Congress of Political Science. Madrid, 8 July 2012 - 12 July 2012.
- Exploring the life of patient data in the UK healthcare sector. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2020(2020: AoIR2020)
Reports
- Public perceptions of BBC data uses in experiments which give people more control of data
- Public perceptions of DWP’s uses of data for identity verification
- Public perceptions of sharing and aggregating health data
- Report on Living With Data Interviews & Focus
Groups
- Living with Data survey report
- Public understanding and perceptions of data practices: a review of existing research
- The Use of AI in Housing, Welfare, and Social Care: Scoping Review
Website content
- Towards a critical data science – the complicated relationship between data and the democratic project. Retrieved from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/01/12/towards-a-critical-data-science-data-and-the-democratic-project/
- The progressive ideals behind Open Government Data are being used to further interests of the neoliberal state. Retrieved from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/10/02/open-government-data-and-the-neoliberal-state/
- Big data lets global corps bet on the threat of climate change. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/big-data-lets-global-corps-bet-on-the-threat-of-climate-change-19501
Theses / Dissertations
- Politics of Open Government Data: A Neo-Gramscian Analysis of the United Kingdom's Open Government Data Initiative.
Working papers
- Data Cultures, Power and the City. Programmable Cities: Data and the City.
- Climate Risk, Big Data and the Weather Market. SPERI, 13.
All publications
- Edited books
- Journal articles
- Chapters
- Conference proceedings papers
- Reports
- Website content
- Theses / Dissertations
- Working papers
- Presentations
Edited books
- Dialogues in Data Power: Shifting response-abilities in a datafied world. Bristol University Press.
Journal articles
- What ifs: the role of imagining in people's reflections on data uses. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 30(6), 2025-2041. View this article in WRRO
- ‘Data saves lives’: ideational-material drivers of health data journeys in the UK. Big Data & Society, 11(4). View this article in WRRO
- Socially meaningful transparency in data-based systems: reflections and proposals from practice. Journal of Documentation.
- Addressing labour exploitation in the data science pipeline: views of precarious US-based crowdworkers on adversarial and co-operative interventions. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 21(3), 342-357.
- State-steered smartmentality in Chinese smart urbanism. Urban Studies, 59(14), 2933-2950.
- Potential opportunities and risks of sharing agricultural research data in Tanzania. IASSIST Quarterly, 45(3-4).
- Report on the CyCAT winter school on fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics (FATE) in AI.. SIGIR Forum, 55, 4:1-4:1.
- Guest editorial : special section on “social and cultural biases in information, algorithms, and systems”. Online Information Review, 44(2), 321-323.
- Adversarial Attacks on Crowdsourcing Quality Control. The Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 67(2020), 375-408.
- ‘Someone like me’ : user experiences of the discussion forums of non-12-step alcohol online support groups, June 2019. Addictive Behaviors, 98.
- Introduction to the data power special issue : tactics, access and shaping. Online Information Review, 43(6), 945-951.
- Assembling an infrastructure for historic climate data recovery: data friction in practice. Journal of Documentation, 75(4), 791-806.
- ‘Berrypicking’ in the formation of ideas about problem drinking amongst users of alcohol online support groups. Information in Contemporary Society, 11420, 806-816.
- Community participation in the management of palm leaf manuscripts as Lanna cultural material in Thailand. Journal of Documentation, 74(5), 951-965.
- Data Power in Material Contexts: Introduction. Television and New Media, 18(8), 701-705.
- Making data flow for the climate risk market. Television and New Media, 18(8), 753-768.
- The politics of data friction. Journal of Documentation, 74(2), 412-429.
- Resisting Neoliberalism: The challenge of activist librarianship in English Higher Education. Journal of Documentation, 73(2), 317-335.
- Data journeys: Capturing the socio-material constitution of data objects and flows. Big Data & Society, 3(2), 205395171665450-205395171665450.
- Co-observing the Weather, Co-predicting the Climate: Human Factors in Building Infrastructures for Crowdsourced Data. Science and Technology Studies, 29(3).
- Developments in LGBTQ provision in secondary school library services since the abolition of Section 28. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.
- The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state: the case of Open Government Data in the United Kingdom. Government Information Quarterly, 31(3), 388-395.
- The domestication of open government data advocacy in the United Kingdom: A neo-Gramscian analysis. Policy and Internet, 5(1), 118-137.
- “This is what modern deregulation looks like” : co-optation and contestation in the shaping of the UK’s Open Government Data Initiative. Journal of Community Informatics, 8(2).
- Social reproduction and exclusion in subject indexing: A comparison of public library OPACs and LibraryThing folksonomy. Journal of Documentation, 67(3), 431-448.
- How people connect fairness and equity when they talk about data uses. Big Data and Society. View this article in WRRO
Chapters
- Beliefs, Values and Emotions in Education Practitioners’ Engagements with Learning Analytics in Higher Education, Wisdom, Well-Being, Win-Win (pp. 54-61). Springer Nature Switzerland
- Worker perspectives on designs for a crowdwork co-operative In Hepp A, Jarke J & Kramp L (Ed.), New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies : The Ambivalences of Data Power (pp. 415-443). Palgrave Macmillan
- Big data and data analytics In Elliott A (Ed.), The Routledge Social Science Handbook of AI Routledge
- Everyday activism: challenging neoliberalism for radical library workers in English higher education In Tett L & Hamilton M (Ed.), Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives Policy Press
- Big data, open data and the climate risk market In Brevini B & Murdock G (Ed.), Carbon Capitalism and Communication (pp. 83-93). Palgrave Macmillan
- Data cultures, power and the city, Data and the City (pp. 189-200).
Conference proceedings papers
- Integrating FATE/critical data studies into data science curricula : where are we going and how do we get there?. FAT* '20: Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp 425-435). Barcelona, Spain, 27 January 2020 - 27 January 2020.
- Using data journeys to inform research design: Socio-cultural dynamics of patient data flows in the UK healthcare sector. iConference 2019 Proceedings
- Quality control attack schemes in crowdsourcing. Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (pp 6136-6140). Macao, 10 August 2019 - 10 August 2019.
- All That Glitters Is Gold - An Attack Scheme on Gold Questions in Crowdsourcing.. HCOMP (pp 2-11)
- The role of stories in three non-12 step alcohol online support groups. Transforming Digital Worlds, Vol. 10766 (pp 126-131). Sheffield, UK, 25 March 2018 - 25 March 2018.
- Identifying the Affective Dimension of Data Mining Practice: An Exploratory Study. Transforming Digital Worlds (pp 243-252)
- Preface. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 2103 (pp i-ii)
- Community involvement in the Management of Palm Leaf Manuscripts as Lanna Cultural Material in Thailand. iConference 2017 Proceedings (pp 491-497)
- Competent Men and Warm Women: Gender Stereotypes and Backlash in Image Search Results. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp 6620-6631). Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO, 6 May 2017 - 6 May 2017.
- An exploration of the value of collaborative management of palm-leaf manuscripts as Lanna cultural material in libraries and communities in Thailand.. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Asia-Pacific Library and Information Education and Practice Conference (pp 223-228)
- An exploration of the value of a collaborative model of collection management for Lanna cultural material in libraries in Northern Thailand. IConference 2015 Proceedings (pp 1-4)
- Data Journeys as an approach for exploring the socio-cultural shaping of (big) data: the case of climate science in the United Kingdom. Iconference 2015 Proceedings (pp 1-16)
- Mapping Data Journeys: Design for an interactive web site. iConference 2015 Proceedings (pp 1-4)
- Information policy in the crises of neoliberalism: the case of Open Government Data in the UK. IAMCR 2013. Dublin
- Socio-Technical Transitions Pathways for UK Open Government Data. ACM Web Science 2013
- Building consent: strategy and power in the development of the United Kingdom’s Open Government Data initiative. International Political Science Association 22nd World Congress of Political Science. Madrid, 8 July 2012 - 12 July 2012.
- The sustainability of non-12-step alcohol online support groups: views from group users. Proceedings of the 18th international symposium on health information management research
- Exploring the life of patient data in the UK healthcare sector. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2020(2020: AoIR2020)
- Social Media as a Source of Information: An Exploratory Study of Young Libyans' Perceptions of the Impact of Social Media in Libya during the Period 2011-2015. iConference 2016 Proceedings
Reports
- Public perceptions of BBC data uses in experiments which give people more control of data
- Public perceptions of DWP’s uses of data for identity verification
- Public perceptions of sharing and aggregating health data
- Report on Living With Data Interviews & Focus
Groups
- Living with Data survey report
- Public understanding and perceptions of data practices: a review of existing research
- The Use of AI in Housing, Welfare, and Social Care: Scoping Review
Website content
- Towards a critical data science – the complicated relationship between data and the democratic project. Retrieved from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/01/12/towards-a-critical-data-science-data-and-the-democratic-project/
- Life of Data website. Retrieved from http://lifeofdata.org.uk/
- The progressive ideals behind Open Government Data are being used to further interests of the neoliberal state. Retrieved from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/10/02/open-government-data-and-the-neoliberal-state/
- Big data lets global corps bet on the threat of climate change. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/big-data-lets-global-corps-bet-on-the-threat-of-climate-change-19501
- Productive Freedom and the Political Economy of Hacking. Retrieved from https://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/productive-freedom-and-the-political-economy-of-hacking/
Theses / Dissertations
- Politics of Open Government Data: A Neo-Gramscian Analysis of the United Kingdom's Open Government Data Initiative.
Working papers
- Data Cultures, Power and the City. Programmable Cities: Data and the City.
- Climate Risk, Big Data and the Weather Market. SPERI, 13.
Presentations
- Open Government Data, Online Collective Action and Policy Change in the UK: a Neo-Gramscian Approach.
- Research group
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I am Head of the Digital Societies Research Group
Current PhD students
- Hadley Beresford: Algorithmic bias: patterns, consequences and alternatives
- Ian Widdows: Secondary school accountability measures in England - their effectiveness, effects and an exploration of alternative approaches.
- Anajoyce Katabalwa: agricultural research data management in Tanzania
- Grants
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Research projects
Patterns in Practice: cultures of data mining in science, education and the arts
Arts and Humanities Research Council Principal Investigator £458,454 August 2021 - February 2024 Nuffield Foundation Co-Investigator £286,543 September 2019 - March 2022 The Cyprus Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (CyCAT)
European Commission - Horizon 2020 Advanced Partner £999,965 October 2018 - September 2021 The Secret Life of a Weather Datum
Arts and Humanities Research Council Principal Investigator £80,185 January 2014 - March 2015
- Teaching interests
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I currently teach on the MSc Data Science programme and the BA Digital Media and Society programme.
I developed the ‘Data and Society’ core Data Science module and have co-ordinated and taught that module since 2016. In its current form, the module covers topics such as informational power, bias and discrimination, epistemology, public and artists engagements with data science, legal constraints on data processing, and applied ethics.
I was the Deputy Programme Co-ordinator for the MSc Data Science programme from 2017-2020. As part of this role, I did a lot of work around how best to integrate ideas from critical data studies into Data Science curricula. I presented some of this work at Data Power conference 2017, and more recently led a research project in the Information School exploring our evolving approach to integrating FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics) and Critical Data Studies into our MSc Data Science. I presented our paper on this research at ACM FAccT 2020. I am continuing to work on this topic with the School’s Data Science teaching team.
With Helen Kennedy in Sociological Studies, I developed the Faculty of Social Sciences degree BA Digital Media and Society, which we launched in 2017. The core modules of the degree are jointly delivered by the department of Sociological Studies and the Information School, with pathways currently offered by Journalism and Education. We began with a cohort of around 20 in 2017, and this has increased to 115 in 2020. I developed the core first year module ‘Digital Media and Society’, which I co-ordinated and taught from 2017 to 2021. The module is a large 40-credit module that integrates both social science and web design teaching and assessment. I have now handed the co-ordination of the module over to my colleague Kate Miltner.
- Teaching activities
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INF204 - Ethical Data Management and Governance
INF6033 - Data and Society
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Data Power Conference Management Team (2015 - )
- Big Data and Society Editorial Advisory Board (2015 -)
- AHRC Peer Review Council member (2020 - )
- Member of Association of Internet Researchers
- External examiner at University of Warwick
- Member of ASIS&T