TY - JOUR AU - Buschauer, Regine PY - 2016/05/01 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Datavisions – On Panoptica, Oligoptica, and (Big) Data JF - The International Review of Information Ethics JA - IRIE VL - 24 IS - 0 SE - Article DO - 10.29173/irie147 UR - https://informationethics.ca/index.php/irie/article/view/147 SP - AB - In focusing on relations between data and vision and proposing to address big data in terms of currently dominant optical metaphors (and, quite literally, in terms of ‘visions’), the paper makes a case for an approach that allows for clearer distinctions between big data as ‘visions’, and data technologies. (Re)assessing (present and past) notions and visions of panoptic data technologies, I outline three perspectives on the nexus between data and vision(s). Following Bruno Latour’s counter-image of “oligoptica”, I argue, more generally, in favour of a conceptual framework that understands big data as a sociotechnical infrastructure, and discuss, drawing on more recent studies, in which ways this approach allows to address social and ethical implications of present data technologies and practices in a more differentiated way. ER -