Provenance, power and place: Linked data and opaque digital geographies

Ford, H; Graham, M

Provenance, power and place: Linked data and opaque digital geographies

Ford, H

Graham, M

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Publisher:: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2016, 34, (6), pp. 957-970
Issue Date:: 2016-12-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Ford, H https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3500-9772
dc.contributor.author	Graham, M
dc.date.accessioned	2022-08-12T23:14:40Z
dc.date.available	2022-08-12T23:14:40Z
dc.date.issued	2016-12-01
dc.identifier.citation	Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2016, 34, (6), pp. 957-970
dc.identifier.issn	0263-7758
dc.identifier.issn	1472-3433
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/160060
dc.description.abstract	The ability of search engines to shape our understandings of the world by controlling what people discover when looking for information is well known. We argue that the power of search engines has become further entrenched in the wake of the current move to restructure the Web according to the logics of ‘linked data’ and the ‘semantic Web’. With the goal of sharing information according to structured formats that computers (rather than humans) can easily process and analyse, linked data engineers are abstracting information from fact sharing websites like Wikipedia into short, uniform statements that can be more efficiently shared, compared and analysed. In response to this enhanced power by search engines and the corresponding loss of agency by ordinary users, some Wikipedians have challenged the ways in which data from the encyclopedia has been used (often without credit) by search engines like Google. Using the capabilities approach first developed by Amartya Sen, we interrogate exactly what some Wikipedians believe they are losing when they complain about how Google represents facts about the world obtained from Wikipedia and other sites.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
dc.relation.ispartof	Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1177/0263775816668857
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject	0502 Environmental Science and Management, 1205 Urban and Regional Planning, 1604 Human Geography
dc.subject.classification	Geography
dc.title	Provenance, power and place: Linked data and opaque digital geographies
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	34
utslib.for	0502 Environmental Science and Management
utslib.for	1205 Urban and Regional Planning
utslib.for	1604 Human Geography
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
dc.date.updated	2022-08-12T23:14:39Z
pubs.issue	6
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	34
utslib.citation.issue	6

Abstract:

The ability of search engines to shape our understandings of the world by controlling what people discover when looking for information is well known. We argue that the power of search engines has become further entrenched in the wake of the current move to restructure the Web according to the logics of ‘linked data’ and the ‘semantic Web’. With the goal of sharing information according to structured formats that computers (rather than humans) can easily process and analyse, linked data engineers are abstracting information from fact sharing websites like Wikipedia into short, uniform statements that can be more efficiently shared, compared and analysed. In response to this enhanced power by search engines and the corresponding loss of agency by ordinary users, some Wikipedians have challenged the ways in which data from the encyclopedia has been used (often without credit) by search engines like Google. Using the capabilities approach first developed by Amartya Sen, we interrogate exactly what some Wikipedians believe they are losing when they complain about how Google represents facts about the world obtained from Wikipedia and other sites.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/160060