BIG DATA & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Nicolas Douay, Annie Wan (edited by, 2017), Big Data & Civic Engagement, Planum Publisher, Roma-Milano | ISBN 9788899237066

The watershed currently created by the surge of the web in various aspects of our daily life is yet to be framed and conceptualized. The massive increase of computational data created by every walk of digital life implies need for new elds of computational management that creates a new environment compelling societies and citizens to rethink on a scale never seen before what makes community and motivates public life in cities (Batty, 2013; Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, 2013; Townsend, 2014; Yang et al., 2015). "This proliferation of information in the digital age has an acute impact on both public opinion and political participation." (Hui, 2016). This new relationship with media and technology does impact conception of citizenship by unleashing myriad opportunities to participate in politics. By the same token it requires the reinvention of the ways and definition of political engagement when the dangers of privatization of daily life loom large. To rethink the nature of citizenship and civic engagement demands a tremendous effort of understanding as it is currently changing the very definition of the political. And it is, of course, a work in progress.



Big Data & Civic Engagement: A Conference
It is with these issues in mind that Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), the C-Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC), jointly organized a conference named "Big Data & Civic Engagement" in March 2016 in Hong Kong, lining up a few renowned experts on the question as well as some more direct protagonists involved in the 'smart' development in various areas of the region. The four texts proposed in this volume are the results of this meeting, and hope to offer an overview of the complex issues. Following the conference, an exhibition was held to propose a side track to academia and to envision how a new breed of digital artists seize the new possibilities offered by the ongoing processes of redefinition of civil participation through digital information.

BIG DATA & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Edited by Nicolas Douay & Annie Wan

CONTENTS
• Big Data in the City
Nicolas Douay, Annie Wan, David Bartel
• Narrating the city digitally: the case of spatial editorialisation with the City Telling project
Nicolas Douay
• Space Juxtaposition in Arts
Annie Wan 
• Platform Cooperativism vs. the Sharing Economy
Trebor Scholz
• How to rank the web? Competition among metrics of digital information
Dominique Cardon 
• The City's Survival Kit
Annie Wan, Nicolas Douay, David Bartel

CREDITS 
The essays published in this book have been presented and discussed in a first version during the Big Data & Civic Engagement Conference, February 18th-19th 2016, Hong Kong Baptist University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC).

This publication has been possible thanks to the support of Hong Kong Baptist University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC), French Consulate and Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS).