Datafication is a technological trend turning many aspects of our life into data[1][2] which is subsequently transferred into information realised as a new form of value.[3] Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger introduced the term datafication to the broader lexicon in 2013.[4] Up until this time, datafication had been associated with the analysis of representations of our lives captured through data, but not on the present scale. This change was primarily due to the impact of big data and the computational opportunities afforded to predictive analytics.
Datafication is not the same as digitization, which takes analog content—books, films, photographs—and converts it into digital information, a sequence of ones and zeros that computers can read. Datafication is a far broader activity: taking all aspects of life and turning them into data [...] Once we datafy things, we can transform their purpose and turn the information into new forms of value[2]
There is an ideological aspect of datafication, called dataism: "the drive towards datafication is rooted in a belief in the capacity of data to represent social life, sometimes better or more objectively than pre-digital (human) interpretations.”[5]
Examples of datafication as applied to social and communication media are how Twitter datafies stray thoughts or datafication of HR by LinkedIn and others. Alternative examples are diverse and include aspects of the built environment, and design via engineering and or other tools that tie data to formal, functional or other physical media outcomes. Data collection and -processing for optimal control (e.g. shape optimization) is an example.
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