Social Media Data Mining Becomes Ordinary

Abstract

Kennedy argues that as social media data mining has become more ordinary, it has diversified, and so it is necessary to differentiate types of data mining, actors engaged in such practices, institutional and organisational contexts in which it takes place, and its range of purposes and consequences. It is important to attend to ordinary actors involved in social media data mining and to ask: what should concern us about ordinary social media data mining? Are there ways in which it might make a positive contribution to society? Kennedy introduces the main argument of the book: as social media data mining becomes ordinary, new data relations emerge, characterised by a widespread desire for numbers and its troubling consequences, but also by the possibility of doing good with data.