Case study: Building Community through Data Literacy

As part of our work on the Community Campaigns on Data: Campaigners Toolkit we have identified a series of case studies that provide an insight into how data is a key component of campaigns.

Researcher Elinor Carmi has explored how different marginalised communities are affected by data, and the importance of data literacy work to build a sense of the collective impacts of data. In Elinor’s work, she finds that:

• People Care: The majority of people don’t know how the data ecosystem works, and as a result we are then told “people don’t care” what’s happening to their data. But when we talk to people - they do care, but don’t know where to begin and what to do about it.

• People are not widely aware of the full range of data being collected, or who has access to their data. For example, people thinking about health data might think just about direct health records, but not searches for health information etc. which might be held by lots of other kinds of organisations people are not aware of.

• Awareness often doesn’t translate into action, because people don’t know their digital rights. But research shows that, the more people know about their data and their digital rights, the more they exercise those rights.

Elinor has explored how creative approaches to building data literacy can lay the groundwork for more powerful community campaigns. Together with Professor Simeon Yates, Elinor developed Seven Principles for Developing Citizens Data Literacy: 1) Ensure citizens feel more empowered and have practical and alternative routes to enact that empowerment; 2) Consider the design and practical challenges citizens face in managing and controlling the data they share or “give off” whilst also being actively involved with others via the plethora of platforms in our digital society; 3) Make clear to citizens their rights – as citizens not just consumers – to make claims in regard to data use, sharing and trading and also of digital systems and platforms; 4) ‘Meet citizens where they are’ in terms of their digital and social experience and context; 5) Address the challenge that those adults most in need of support are very likely outside formal educational settings; 6) Do not just focus on skills – in fact there is lots of help out there for skills – it is the critical awareness and proactive citizenship that are missing in most training and support; 7) Seek to provide deep critical consciousness the power relationships in our datafied society and support them to exercise their right to challenge this imbalance and demand change.

Dr. Carmi is also part of the Critical Big Data & Algorithmic Literacy Network, where you can find multiple resources and activities around data and algorithmic literacies in multiple languages, from AI, digital rights, facial recognition and many more.

If you’re interested in community campaigns on data you can read more about our catalysing work and contact us